Ant Laboratory

Ant Laboratory is a living ant colony to watch, and a laboratory to study it in. Release one queen into a glass ant farm, watch her colony grow, then follow it out across an island of its own.

Begin with one queen
Choose from seven species: black garden, fire, wood, leafcutter, carpenter, harvester and turtle ants, each with its own nest, diet and habits. Turtle ants live in a network of old wood, with soldiers guarding the doors. Release the queen and watch the first workers emerge. Every ant in the farm is simulated: nurses feed larvae, diggers carve tunnels and rooms, foragers follow scent trails and undertakers clear away the dead. Follow one worker with the Ant cam, examine her, or lift her into a dish under the lens.

Hunters and gatherers
Meat-eating ants chase live crickets and fruit flies, call their nestmates and drag the prey home together. Leafcutters cut up the leaves you give them. Offer seeds, sugar, strawberries or blueberries, and follow the food home. With the port open, a wolf spider may wander in, and a carpenter ant can carry the zombie-ant fungus home. Close the port to keep it out.

A living ant farm
Habitat sets light, water and warmth. Warm one end or water one side, and nurses carry the brood to where it grows best. Mist by hand, or let the mister do it. Give the colony a winter rest. Mould grows where it is damp, springtails graze it, and undertakers carry spoilt food away. Knock on the glass and the ants startle.

Keep it, or let it out
When the colony fills the farm, you choose. Keep it contained, and it grows on slowly for years. Or open an access port to an island grown from a seed, and close it again when you like. Workers found outdoor nests linked by trails, among rival colonies. Your young queens found daughter colonies, and every nest's card says how it began. Zoom from the island down to one ant, or dive inside a nest.

Seasons, weather and water
A year passes in a little over an hour at 1×, with falling leaves, snow and frozen ponds. Night falls slowly on the island. Waves break on the coast and streams run clear over stones. Outdoors, storms, drought, fire, rivals and predators shape its life. With the port closed, the ant farm stays sealed and safe.

Study the data
Field notes record measured changes. Charts follow population, births and deaths, jobs, food, climate and territory. Run an experiment: the Lab tells you what to watch, then shows what happened. The family tree shows how the colony spread. The field guide draws each species at true size. Records export as CSV. They follow a simplified simulation, not real ants.

The lodge
The ant farm stands in a small field station, with windows onto your own island. Tap what is in it: the food jar, the books, the lamp and its light switch. The radio plays the developer's own tracks. The computer now runs ANT OS, the lodge's own system: a journal, ant facts that name their sources, and a Games folder with Ant Arcade, Aphid Ranch, Leaf Cutter and The Long Way Home, a platformer about a lost scout ant.

Quiet sounds
Wind, rain, insects, birds, streams and surf follow the place, season and weather, most recorded by the developer. Close to the glass, you hear the ants. The only music is the lodge radio and the little tunes in the games.

At your pace
Pause, or speed up to 25×. Cinematic mode films the colony, and Hide interface gives a clean view. While you are away, the colony waits where you left it. Keep several colonies, each on its own island.

Works with iPhone Duo: tabletop mode
Fold or unfold it mid-game and play carries on. Half open on a table, the colony fills the top half, with the controls below. Closed during play, the outer screen shows just the ant farm.

No ads. No accounts. No data collected.
Pay once. Play offline. Your colonies are saved on your device.