And then there were ten

We added some new members to our household this weekend. Not counting the tiny ants that have infested one of my house plants, we now have ten large ants living in an ant farm. We started with 12 large ants, the biggest we could find, from a mountain park near our house. Milan and I went out ant hunting, armed with an aspirator I made this summer especially for this purpose.

Here is Milan using the aspirator. There is a screen between the trap section and the tube section so we won't suck any ants or large pieces of dirt into our mouths.

Not surprisingly, we attracted some attention from the other visitors in the park as we crawled around the path trying to suck up ants. One concerned visitor went ahead to find someone who could speak English and warn us about the very poisonous Chinese ants that could send us to the hospital. I thanked him for his concern and assured him that we were being very careful, as Milan picked up another ant with his fingers.

I have always loved ant farms and even had one in college for a little while. I finally have a three-year old so I can pretend that the ant farm is for him. We are going to share our busy little pets with Milan's class this week too.

After we got the ants settled in their new home, I attempted to identify them through an internet search. Unfortunately, we seem to have carpenter ants that dig holes in wood, not dirt. So there is not much dirt-digging going on in the farm. I thought these guys looked familiar - just like the ones I found running all around my parent's house this summer! But because they are so big, they are fun to watch. We'll keep them around for awhile, maybe replace them with some industrious dirt-diggers later.

Our new friends