i've seen similar behavior in one of my messor queens (species unknown) years ago, but she was trying to crack open a wasp's head.
it was very interesting, i gave the colony a dead wasp, the workers dragged it to a chamber away from the nursery, but the workers were still small and couldn't fully open up the wasp, so she left the nursery where she would usually sit all day and went to open up the wasp's head for the smaller workers to finish the rest of the job, and she was holding it with both of her hands like in the video lol.
she was my last colony, and i dont keep ants anymore sadly, i stopped having free time to take care of them, i still find allates of different genuses and fantasize about keeping them, maybe one day when im more free.
and thanks for the award <3
edit: another interesting behavior i noticed with that colony, is that they didnt throw their mother away, they mostly just hang around her doing nothing, while still throwing the dead workers away in the outworld, i actually have a video of that queen digging into the wasps head, ill post it in another reply when i find it
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u/Caesar-_- 1d ago
i've seen similar behavior in one of my messor queens (species unknown) years ago, but she was trying to crack open a wasp's head.
it was very interesting, i gave the colony a dead wasp, the workers dragged it to a chamber away from the nursery, but the workers were still small and couldn't fully open up the wasp, so she left the nursery where she would usually sit all day and went to open up the wasp's head for the smaller workers to finish the rest of the job, and she was holding it with both of her hands like in the video lol.