Guys, I don’t know what compelled me to do this today, but perhaps you too woke up
one morning and thought “Oh, wouldn’t it be neat to see how an Asian bullet ant
colony would react to my hand”?!
Ok, perhaps not your average thought while drinking your morning coffee, but today I
finally sought out to satisfy my curiosity, and summoned up the courage to actually stick
my hand into my Asian bullet ant nest, and what happened when I did was totally unexpected
and something I won’t ever forget!
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Enjoy!
Before I start this video let me just send out a sincere warning, particularly to you
kids out there!
Do not try this at home if you own a bullet ant colony, which likely isn’t a lot of
you, unless you hail from the tropical geographies of South America or Southeast Asia where these
ants are native, which thankfully for you guys, I do, so you won’t have to try it
yourself.
A sting from these ants is excruciatingly painful and can cause anaphylactic shock if
you’re allergic or have a reaction to their powerful stings, so again do not try this
at home.
I’m an expert and was medically well-prepared for the ant stings!
OK, but now that I’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, I was sorta thrilled to do
this for science, and what actually ended up happening when I made legit, physical contact
with my aggressive Asian bullet ants, was something I never expected, and a sensation
I’ll never, ever forget, so keep on watching until the end!
Now before I go ahead and stick my hand into my Asian Bullet ant nest, let’s meet our
test subjects shall we?
This is my Asian Bullet Ant colony, that we’ve named on this channel the “Black Panthers”.
These ants are an incredible species, when you compare them to other ants, and you’re
about to see why in just a sec!
Right now they’re trying to finish off the half of a Dubia roach I gave them last night.
These Asian Bullet ants, belonging to the genus Diacamma, are different from the more
well-known South American bullet ants, which belong to the genus Paraponera, but they are
by no means less impressive, and in fact you’re about to see what makes them even cooler than
their South American co-namers.
These ants behave more like a pack of wolves than an ant colony, and I’ve noticed that
they are less hive-minded than most ants.
It does seem like each ant is more self-aware somehow, each worker highly intelligent, less
dependent on the collective mind than most other ant species.
Even when there are a few ants around, they seem to be able to make decisions swiftly
and confidently, whereas most ants require a swarm to come to a collective decision on
things, and communicate better when there are many workers present.
But with these Asian Bullet ants I find they can be just as efficient solo as they can
be as a group.
There’s also a reason for this, which again I’ll get to in a second!
The Black Panthers are living in this ac Outworld from antscanada.com.
There used to be living plants here but they’ve totally killed those.
They clearly wanted their territories clear cut!
Now the ants pull the pieces from the roach carcass and take these pieces through any
of the two holes which lead to their AC Hybrid Nest Formica where they’ve also established
nesting areas.
Pls excuse the dirt in this room, guys.
This is the colony’s butcher room, where they further break down insect body parts
to feed to the young.
Those brown things there are new cocoons, recently formed after the mature larvae gorged
themselves on the insect body parts.
The larvae look like maggots and they eat just as voraciously as their adult sisters!
Speaking of brood, where is the Asian bullet ant queen you ask?
Well, that’s what I wanted to show you about these Asian Bullet ants, because what makes
these ants distinct from most ants, including the South American bullet ants, is that these
Asian Bullet ants lack a proper queen entirely.
That’s right, this Asian Bullet Ant colony is composed exclusively of worker ants, which
is why the species is also known as a Borneon Queenless ant.
There are no queen ants in this species.
But now you’re probably asking yourself, then who is laying all the eggs?
Well, it’s a mated dominant worker ant.
Somewhere in this ravenous pack of Asian Bullet ants is what is called a Gamergate, who is
the only one allowed to lay the eggs in the colony and keep the colony going.
She’s still a worker ant, though, so she does actual work like hunting along with the
rest of the pack, and building tunnels, but remains the dominant ‘alpha’ female of
the group.
Which one here is the Gamergate, I can only guess because they all look pretty much identical.
But check this out, guys.
When the Gamergate dies, suddenly her throne is empty, which causes the most dominant workers
to fight for the available spot to become the new colony Gamergate, and that new gamergate
goes on to lay the eggs, but she needs a male from another nest to come in and mate with
her, in order for her eggs to create more worker ants, which is actually why I don’t
only have one colony of Asian Bullet ants, but two, in hopes I can cross breed the males
between colonies in order to keep the colonies going indefinitely.
You can find out more about that in a previous video here if you’re curious.
OK, I know what you’re all thinking: Enough talk, AntsCanada, I’m here to see you stick
your hand in the Asian Bullet ant nest and get stung!
And indeed I’m going to do just that, right now.
Alright, AC Family, now I had to be smart about this!
Ultimately, I didn’t want to get stung, I just wanted to see if the ants would let
me touch them, perhaps pet them, and even go so far as allow me to pick them up!
But I knew I couldn’t do this without getting stung if the colony was in “alarm mode”!
And so guys, the first step I had to do was distract the ants, just so the least amount
of workers would go into alarm mode, and inform the whole colony that my Godzilla claw had
arrived to kill them!
So, let’s stick a freshly killed madagascar hissing roach nymph inside to distract them.
Instantly, the colony pounced the scalded roach and began to attempt to pin it down
so they could get some good stings in.
Check out the savagery of the workers!
They’re determined to take this roach down!
I caught the ants flexing at their gaster to attempt to sting it at its softer parts.
It was only a matter of time now that this roach would be immobilized!
See guys, if I just went in and stuck my fingers all up in their space, this would have been
the fate of my fingers.
I’m glad the ants were effectively distracted!
And now to attempt to stick my finger inside and try to first, simply touch an ant to see
how they’d react.
But before I do so, what is your hypothesis?
Will the ants attack me head on and sting me with all their might, or will they ignore
me and remain hyper focussed on their roach.
Leave your guesses in the comments then later come back to your comment to tell us if you
were right!
Ahhh I was so scared, but I knew it was all mind over matter.
I mean, I’ve been stung by a swarm of fire ants before and I was ok.
I hovered my finger above the pack of ferocious ants trying desperately to spot the best ant
to attempt to just touch lightly with my finger tip.
It was so hard to choose, and as you can imagine, my heart was beating fast in my ears the whole
time.
And then, I just went for it.
In!
There!
It was a split second but I touched an ant, and it looks like they didn’t really notice
much, and if they did perhaps they thought it was the roach’s flailing legs or something.
OK, and now for the next step: to actually pick up an ant and allow it to crawl on my
bare skin!
Now before doing this, I wanted to test the ants first by allowing them to react to my
tweezers, so I went in with the tweezers and instantly a worker hopped on, and then another.
The ants immediately were gnashing their jaws and stinging my tweezers, which was not assuring,
but then I noticed they sort of stopped, or so it looked like anyway.
I knew if I were to make some drastic quick movements out of panic or broke out in a profuse
sweat, then for sure I’d be stung, so I tried to practice remaining calm by quickly
touching an ant again and simply training myself to be ok with actual skin to exoskeleton
contact.
OK that ant lunged at me!
I tried to touch an ant further away from the kill, and ah!
OK, that ant was also pretty amped up and in attack mode!
I decided to try another tactic, and tried to get an ant to simply walk onto my finger
from one of the vine sticks.
An ant approached and began to sniff my fingernail, but I freaked out the moment I saw its abdomen
curl forward assumingly to sting me.
Ahhh that thing so wanted to attack me.
Look at her!
See!
No, this is not the right ant!
I tried again and this time an ant actually latched on, and I involuntarily panicked and
flung it off!
Ahhhh, guys I couldn’t do it!
The ants were just too aggressive, and I was so scared to get stung!
But I wasn’t willing to give up just yet.
I decided to wait until the roach was completely dead, when the ants were less on edge.
The ants seemed much more calm now, still nicely distracted but a bit more chill.
And so I decided to go in one last time and try my luck, and AC Family, check out what
happened.
An ant latched on and I had to fight with all my mind power to not panic nor fling it
off, suddenly the world around me went silent as I found myself in an intense but real moment
with the Asian Bullet Ant.
To my surprise, the ant didn’t try to sting me nor fight me, but instead wandered around
and explored my fingers, crawling every so gently across to the back of my hand.
In this moment, I was no longer scared.
I trusted it, and I feel it trusted me, or at least, trusted I wasn’t some predator
trying to kill it.
I tried my best to respect its need for balance and stability so I kept my movements as smooth
as possible.
It was crazy, I could feel the weight of the ant and feel all its claws gripping onto my
skin as it moved around.
The moment was beautiful and a thrill I’ve never before experienced in all my years of
ant keeping.
And then, it came.
The moment I knew we were done with our interaction.
It was time to put the ant back to return to its colony.
The ant calmly walked off my finger and onto the vine to make its way back home.
And that was that!
I had successfully touched my Asian Bullet Ants and thankfully without a sting!
It was a sensation and experience I would never forget, the most intimate I would ever
get with these Asian Bullet Ants.
My curiosity was 100% satisfied and I didn’t plan to try this again, nor feel the need
to proceed to the next level and induce an ant sting.
These were after all my pets, and I didn’t want to have to make them feel unnecessarily
uncomfortable in any way.
As I watched the Asian Bullet Ants continue to feast on their roach, I felt gratitude
for being the colony’s caregiver.
Beyond their notorious reputation for delivering painful stings and wolf-like aggression, these
Asian Bullet Ants are unique ants, smart, and as I discovered today, at times not the
savage beasts we always imagine bullet ants to be in our minds.
They were animals that deserved all the respect and admiration in the world, as one of the
most unique ants I’ve certainly ever kept, and one I hope will remain with us in our
Antiverse for years to come.
Thank you for watching, and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!
Did you guys enjoy this week’s episode featuring our Black Panthers?
It’s been awhile since I had featured them on the channel so I felt it was time to give
them some spotlight with today’s experiment.
So much is ahead for these and our other ants of the ant room including the Avatar Floating
Mountains paludarium for our Phoenix Empire which is under construction right now, so
if you haven’t yet, do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you
get notified at every upload, because I think notifications are broken again.
Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me, guys.
Thank you!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to see something
new I’m launching on this channel called the AC Senate, an exclusive team of supporters
whom I’m giving special voting and decision-making powers to, as well as some other neat perks
like personalized video greetings.
If joining the AC Senate and becoming a supporting member of this channel is something you’d
be interested in, watch this hidden video!
And guys, did you know that it’s anting season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you
don’t even need to leave your home to start an ant colony?!
You can catch pregnant queen ants from the safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open
window starting this month!
Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to
you in a special package from our ant-loving facility in the USA, so you can get the most
out of your ant keeping experience.
We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!
We also have a helpful forum and ant colony trading marketplace on the site.
Visit AntsCanada.com today.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What are pheromones?
Congratulations to A-a - ron who answered:
Pheromones are biochemicals produced within glands inside their bodies used
to communicate with each other.
Congratulations A-a - ron, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our
shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What is a gamergate?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free Ultimate Ant Keeping
Handbook E-book from our shop!
Hope you could subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help
us keep making more.
It’s ant love forever!