You asked for it, you got it.

[rebeccmeister]

I have posted some pictures of the leafcutter ants and their fungus gardens below the cut. Keep in mind that most of these things are tiny, and my camera is pretty good, but not great, for macrophotography. If you click on the images, they should take you to a gallery that has some other odds and ends as well.

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	Introduction: the older colonies Many of the plastic boxes in this photo house nests that are 2-4 years old. Some will remember when I first collected queens for these nests--it was like winning the lottery.
	Strange colony Inside of the plastic boxes, there are sets of small petri dishes where the ants can grow their fungus. For a while, I also tried to get the ants to grow fungus in plastic bottles, but we discovered that this method has more drawbacks than benefits. For one thing, the ants can chew a hole through the bottle, as we discovered. This colony has managed to keep its bottle fungus garden going, though.
	Another bottle colony design There is Plaster of Paris in the bottom part of the bottle,which is submerged underwater to maintain high humidity in the fungus garden. This works reasonably well, unless the ants dig all of the plaster out of the bottle or chew their way through the sides.
	Up close in a bottle colony Here's an idea of what the fungus gardens look like--curtains of fungus. There are also some brood items (larvae) towards the front.
	Small colony housing arrangements These colonies are approaching their first birthday--they're the ants that caused me to change my plans last summer to hurry back to Arizona. In the long run, they were worth it. I will be using these colonies for my experiment this summer.
	Observation station I expect to spend a lot of time in that chair, peering into the depths of each colony as I note the behavior of each painted ant.
	Painting station Each ant is paint-marked with four different dots of paint. We work with six different colors to give every ant a unique color combination. When we aren't painting them, the ants hang out in those plastic boxes, which are kept humid.
	Holding an ant, about to apply red paint with a toothpick This is my undergraduate A's hand, while he practices painting ants. I prefer to use an insect pin, but everybody's different when it comes to painting strategies. We have found that it is simplest to paint ants by carefully grasping 1-2 legs so they hold still, and then carefully dotting paint in the appropriate place. We use hobby paints, which work well in general.
	Take a look inside the colony... Here's one of the fungus chambers of one of the freshly-painted colonies. Hopefully this gives you some sense of scale. These dishes are just about the size of the palm of my hand. The blue material at the bottom is dental plaster, which helps to keep the colony's fungus moist. If the fungus is exposed to open air, it dries out incredibly quickly and dies. I had to weigh the fungus at the start of this experiment, so it is no longer attached to the ceiling, which is how the ants prefer to grow it.
	Some painted ants With my finger for scale. As you can tell, some paint jobs are cleaner than others.
	Freshly painted ants Here they are, just hanging out...
	Painted ants from above
	The freshly painted colony I paint-marked 60 out of approximately 100 ants--it gets too complicated to try and watch any more than that.
	More freshly painted ants
	Freshly painted ants - one more view
	Peering through the fungus garden I just think these particular fungus gardens look really cool, almost like some sort of weird underwater scene.
	Through the fungus garden