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Hard at Work
Published: 2012-05-22 10:06:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 13799; Favourites: 1253; Downloads: 198
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Description
Lasius niger digging*EDIT*
Ooohh a DD! Thank you so much!
Thank you all for the suggestion, the feature, the comments, the favourites!
I have read the comments and a lot of them are asking what this photo is all about.
It is a photograph of common UK garden ants, Lasius niger, digging in an ant farm. Rather than sand, the ant farm is filled with a blue gel, which they tunnel in. They can also eat the gel, so it meets all their requirements.
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Comments: 102
I used to have one of these.. I loved it so much!
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I remember when I had one of these ant farms! They were so interesting!
Makes me want one again!
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Nice job on this image of the ants burrowing through the "AntWorks" ant farm gel.
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i always had a fear of ants
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I remember I had one of these when I was six! ^^ I now wanna get one again!
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That's the first time I see a niger work
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HEY dun be racist, although im chinese!
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What? He's new to ants. Give him a break.
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do you have an ant farm? is it one of those ant farms that have gel in it instead of sand.
..............
my baby brother tried to eat
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This is almost surreal, I love the colours and the texture details.
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nice shot! they really seems to be frozen or stuck in nowhere. It's awesome and it worths the DD
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This is very unique...at first I thought they were frozen solid in a drip of ice dandling down, and then I find out it's a gel ant farm...I never knew there was such a thing, but that's really cool, especially if the ants are able to live and eat in it comfortably to live long enough to form some interesting networks and social behaviours
I would actually like something like this 
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I thought at first it's some kind of frozen water. ._o This is just wonderful!
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This is intriguing! Very unique; nice simplistic composition that brings attention to the little ants.
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Hi there! Your beautiful work has been featured in my journal this week!
LINK---> [link]
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Thank you!
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You are most welcome :3
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Very unique image. I'm fascinated by the gel. So is this the next generation ant farm? No more sand, just a thin slab of transparent gel/food for them to dig in?
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Yep! It is about an inch thick. It's great because you get to see the three dimensional structures instead of just tunnels. They create rounded spherical chambers, dig vertically and horizontally. It's brilliant!
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That's awesome. What's equally as awesome is this comment I found on a review of a gel ant farm: βWithin hours the ants just started dying - the survivors piled all the dead ones in one spot on the top of the gel.β ..ha...haha! Thought I'd share, pretty hilarious. I'm still going to look into one though. I have plenty of ants in case the ones in the mail don't fare so well.
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Yeah, they do that
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- I know this might be a bit late to comment, but here I go anyway! I'm an ant hobbyist (yes, those exist 
These "AntWork" antfarms are no good. The gel simply doesn't provide enough nutrients for the ants, and it's certainly not enough to actually keep them alive. I do not recommend ANYONE keeping ants in these!
If you have any ant related questions, feel free to send me a message
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so is there another way to get it looking like that but with enough nutrients for the ants?
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You could use the same sort of container, but with dirt. This setup is quite unstable though, and you would have to provide the ants with nutrients yourself, in the shape of sugar/honeywater and insects (this could change depending on the species, but those are usually the most solid choices). Unfortunately, this setup limits visibility a whole lot. Another setup, which might work better, is carving tunnels in ytong, or aerated concrete. Both options would require you to feed the ants yourself and water their containers to avoid them drying out, however.
If you are interested in keeping ants, I suggest you check out some of the forums out there. Most of them are filled with people who know way more about this than I do.
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well i think i wrote my question too "easy"
i meant, if there is another way to get that look (to see how the ants are working etc. another transparent medium) like the photo itself
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wow.. this looks surreal. what are they digging in?
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Thanks! It is a gel, they can tunnel in it and they can eat it as well.
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ooh, I see! so these are your ants?
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Kind of, I borrowed them from the garden!
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In order to keep it going, you have to pick a colony and dig up the queen. At least, that's what I read somewhere.
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