Ant Laboratory

Ant Laboratory 2.0, The Naturalist: a new look, lifelike water, day and night, a living lodge, and an island that lives on. Your colonies carry on where they were. A NEW LOOK - Clear glass controls float over the colony, in forest green and brass. Prefer the old look? Pick Classic in Settings. - One sun lights everything. The farm has richer soil, carved tunnels and rooms, soft shadows, and new plants. - On the island, trees, bushes and flowers are drawn anew for each season. Young mounds grow, and huge nests look huge. - Room names show as you zoom in to the rooms. WATER - Smooth coasts. The sea runs from sand to turquoise to deep blue, and its waves break into foam. - Ponds have stones and leaves on their beds. Streams have pools, riffles and grassy banks, and flow past their stones. - Cracked ice, rain rings, muddy floods in nests, and a sea bluer in summer and greyer in winter. DAY AND NIGHT - A slow sky: one day and night in about 12 minutes, golden at dusk, with stars and the moon in the lodge's windows. Fire and lightning glow in the dark. - Sky in Settings: Slow, My local time, Time-lapse or Off. THE LODGE COMES ALIVE - The lodge is now its real size: on the map, a field station with a weather mast and solar panels, lit at night. - Its new windows look out on your own island in every season. Trees sway and rain beads on the glass. - Tap the props: a food jar opens Feed, the books the field guide, the lamp puts an ant under the lens, the spray bottle mists the farm. - The radio now has eight tracks, the developer's own, made with Suno. LOOK CLOSER - Tap the lens on an ant's card to examine her: her age, birthday, nature and size. - Under the lens, a brush lifts her into a dish. Tap a body part to learn its name. - The field guide, in Data, has a page for each species, drawn at true size, and four chapters on colony life. - Follow a farm worker to her end: the game says goodbye and follows the sister who carries her out. - Ants walk the floors, walls and glass of their rooms. - Close up, the soil stays sharp, and mould grows out of the food it feeds on. THE KEEPER'S NOTEBOOK - Data's charts flag each change you make. Add notes, and compare before and after. - A health card shows the brood, foragers, tidiness, food and deaths, and what holds the colony back. THE ANT FARM - Clean, in Habitat: drag a small nozzle over the glass to lift out the dead and spoilt food. - Mist by hand, from Habitat or the spray bottle. - Warm one end or water one side. Nurses carry the brood to where it grows best. - Rest the colony in winter (black garden, wood, carpenter and harvester ants). - Mouldy food stays spoilt: undertakers carry it out, or use tweezers. - Old refuse heaps turn into rich soil. - Once there's room, the queen moves down to the middle of the nest. THE ISLAND - Outdoor nests join the mating flight, and a few young queens found daughter colonies. - Wood ants grow one supercolony. Fire ants can start with one queen or many (Experimental). - Burnt land greens again and feeds more for a season. Dead trees fall and young ones grow. - Plant trees and shrubs on the map. Aphids settle on them and feed your ants. - Scouts reach further as the colony grows. Species with majors raise them once big enough. THE ACCESS PORT - Close the port again from the colony's card on the map. Nests cut off from a queen raise no more young. Open it again at any time. - In a closed ant farm, winged ants climb under the lid in flight season. Release them, or keep them in. FEEL AND FOLLOW - On iPhone, feel a gentle tap when the queen or food lands, for close lightning and the colony's firsts. - The Ant cam and Follow glide after the ant. - The screen stays on while the colony runs. - On iPhone Duo, close the phone during play and the outer screen shows just the ant farm. FIXES - A tap on the map's Formicarium label always goes into the ant farm. - Harvester, leafcutter and fire ant pupae are bare, as in real life. Plus many smaller fixes.