After bumping into some random videos on YouTube, getting interested and then drifting into some research for a week or so, I've bought myself an ant, it came in a test tube and cost me a tenner. It is actually a Lasius Flavus (Yellow Meadown Ant), a species common in the UK. If you have noticed ants in your garden, there is a strong chance that they are these if they are brown in colour.
So why buy one if they are so common? This is a queen ant so should hopefully jay eggs and eventually develop a colony to observe, it may be possible to capture a wild queen in the summer but that would put me up to 12 months behind where I am by acquiring this one.
Apparently, around one in three survive this process in captivity so fingers crossed. If anything develops I'll hopefully be able to capture some better photos once any new colony has left the test tube which could potentially be in around 12 months' time (seems this job needs some patience).
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