Our Little Black Friends

 What do you think
Is under the ground
Where the ants all go
With the food they've found?

Do they have a tiny
Set of stairs
That leads to a room
With tables and chairs?

And do they remember
To wipe their feet
Before they sit down
To the table to eat?

           Evelyn A. Wade

One cloudy day we headed out with buckets, spoons and a container to collect some ants and soil for our new ant habitat. The kids bubbled with excitement as we walked along the banks of the Huon River looking for a nest of ants. A couple of times we had stumbled upon a promising hole, only to quickly back away when we discovered that the tenants were in fact the ferocious looking Inchman! The clouds had become ominous and the search was beginning to look fruitless, when R announced that he had found what we were looking for - the smaller and much friendlier Black ant. Collecting these little insects was not to be an easy task, it was sometimes a case of putting one into the container and two escaping! We needed at least 20 of them to re-home successfully, so we continued persistently until the clouds became even more menacing and rain started to fall! D decided to dash to the shelter of the car with one child in his arms and two little sets of legs running closely behind. With collection half completed and determination to see happy little faces peering into the ant habitat later in the day, I tried to ignore the fat droplets landing on my back until I was happy that we had all that was required.

After arriving home, D headed off to work while the kids and I layered soil in the base of the habitat and then ran a connecting tube into the container of ants. We watched and waited..... and waited..... and waited some more..... The kids were surprisingly patient. One little ant would travel up the tube, stop at the entrance and then scurry back to the container before doing it all over again. Eventually he decided that he would be brave enough to venture into the unknown, but around 5 hours later, only one other had joined him. The only other way that had been suggested, was to place them in the freezer and check them at 1 minute intervals until they were all 'sleeping' and then tip them into the centre hole quickly before they woke up again!! Although the idea was quite amusing, I pictured ants escaping all over the place and decided to improvise. We opened the bung hole on the little container and as one ran through, others were prevented from escaping. The lone ant was caught as it ran quickly across the table, before being dropped into a little hole at the top of the habitat designed to allow for topping up water supplies. This method worked well and before long we were watching them explore their new home.

Observing them has been entertaining and almost therapeutic. Similar to watching fish swim around in a tank! More interesting than fish though, watching them move dirt around and talk to each other shows that these little creatures have quite a lot going on in that tiny little brain!!