An old ant
I brought a bunch of moss in from the woods last spring to keep with some tadpoles I was raising.
It was all because of COVID isolation. I needed new hobbies, things to keep me from lying on my bed and playing phone games. So I caught a bunch of tadpoles and salamander tadpoles. Actually the salamanders I rescued from their dried up streambeds rather than catching them.They were going to die anyway so I figured I could give them a second chance at life, in my laundryroom. And the tadpoles were supposed to be food for the aggressive salamander tadpoles. The salamanders did eat some of the traditional tadpoles, but others grew too quickly and were too active to be caught, so they survived.
As it turned out, there was one large black carpenter ant that came in on the moss I put in their aquarium. He was crawling around on it, so I didn't bother him. In fact, I rarely saw him.
The tadpoles turned into frogs or died. The little frogs I set free. The salamanders did the same. I kept water in the box for the moss, and amazingly the ant could still be seen from time to time, usually at night, walking slowly on the moss. He got a bit fuzzy, as if the moss was growing on him a bit. It could have been due to the humidity of summer. Fall came around and things dried up, and he was still there. I started putting a bit of honey on the moss every now and then. I think I saw him (or her) taking it once. I never saw him in the daytime, only at night. I guess he had made a little home in the moss. There were a a couple of pillbugs also living in there.
This winter a friend gave me some tetras and I put them in the box after adding more water. The water disturbed the ant and he started crawling around on the moss. Thinner now, but cleaner looking. Tetras had babies, I put some avocado seeds in the moss to see if they'd sprout. The ant is still there, I saw him last night.
I have taken some pics and vids but the resolution is not good. I googled how long ants survive in isolation and the answer was just a few days. It has been about eight months now that this ant has been living alone. It's quite amazing and I am always happy to see him (or her). I imagine the ant has a a symbiotic relationship with the moss. Or maybe he has been taken over by spores or something and is a zombie programmed to tend the moss. He's a slow mover and seems to rest dormant for days at a time. I leave honey and fish food every now and then. My apartment has a few centipedes, the tetras and my cat but as of yet, my castaway ant lives on.