A careful termite worker peeks its head out cautiously from within the safety of the colony’s
burrow.
When it felt the coast was clear, it began to move warily down the path that it’s fellow
colony workers had cut out a few days before.
It was after something truly precious, that it could smell just beyond.
After passing some massive towers of decaying wood it finally arrived at its destination.
It was time for him to get to work and start mining for this cherished material he and
his family needed.
At this time, the termite’s fellow siblings emerged from the burrow to join in on the
highly vital mining project happening just beyond.
They needed to excavate and bring home this precious material for the building of something
truly amazing!
The colony who lived in a test tube were busy with some secret plans to quietly build their
army, and this treasured material that all the workers were after, would help them do
that.
When the first termite was done collecting the precious material, he rushingly made his
way back to the burrow, with the precious material tucked securely in his jaws.
You see, something truly miraculous was happening in this humble container which made up the
colony’s entire universe.
As the worker entered the test tube to join his colony, they rejoiced at the new material
he had brought back home, which would help build their ultimate home project - a colossal
and growing castle, made of fungus, which they all needed to survive.
The egg pile laid by the queen whose butt you see up there, has officially exploded,
and this industrial and hardworking colony was about to get massive!
I love our termite farm which has taken many months to grow, and I can't wait to show you
the mindblowing progress of our termite colony.
Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel, termite edition!
Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel, and hit the BELL ICON.
Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
AC Family, there it is!
Our termites’ official thriving fungus comb!
Oops, that worker flipped on its back.
The test tube glass is still a bit slippery it seems but it will right itself up soon.
Poor little guy.
Anyway, this test tube will hopefully be their temporary home for now, but more about our
plans of moving them out of here later.
But those of us who’ve been following this entire eye-opening and scientifically ground
breaking termite series since last year, understand how huge and titanic of a deal this is, because
getting to this stage for these Macrotermes gilvus termites, is extremely difficult both
in nature, and even more so in captivity.
In fact, this fungus-building process of these Macrotermes gilvus termites has never been
filmed before in 4K like this, but after months and months of us offering our termites the
care and resources they needed, with the collective help and input from you guys, the AC Family,
we’ve finally gotten them to build this crazy castle of fungus!
This has been a total dream!
Now, I’ll show you and talk more about this miraculous castle of fungus, and in this video
I’ll also be asking you a very important question, where as always, I’ll be needing
all of your help, so do stay tuned until the end for that, and oh yeah, did I mention subscribe
to the channel?
If you haven’t yet please kindly do that now to join our ever growing AC Family.
The more the merrier and the more help I can get the better because what we are doing here
is definitely a first and valuable to science, and so many of you guys have helped me get
to this point already Thank you, AC Family, and now onto the video!
So speaking of your help, before anything else we have a very important order of business
to tend to!
AC Council, it’s time to officially come together and name this awesome termite colony
of ours!
In the last video on our beloved termites, I asked you guys to give your name suggestions
for our termites, and I have collected all of my favourites, as well as those which you
guys bumped up through ‘likes’, and I have pinned the top name suggestions under
the pinned comments of this video.
Now to cast your vote, simply hit the ‘LIKE’ button on your favourite name suggestion post,
and the winning post will be the official name of our termites.
Go now and LIKE the name suggestion of your choice, and PS - you can also like more than
one suggestion if you so choose.
Thank you AC Council for your input!
And now, to the fungus castle.
If you’re new, as mentioned, it’s been a long road getting to this point.
Last year, we on the channel were right smack in the middle of an annual termite nuptial
flight, where reproductive queens and kings fly into the air in massive swarms, then the
paired kings and queens who get “married” kinda follow each other around looking for
a place to start a nest.
I caught several king and queen pairs placed them into test tubes, where they went on to
lay eggs, from which hatched some cute white babies, which grew into adults surviving off
the king’s and queen’s liquified body tissues, until the colony was a big enough
size to break out of their nest and start foraging for decaying material containing
the needed termite fungus spores.
Once that material with the termite fungus spores was collected and digested, the resulting
poop would be placed together to form a sort of dark pillar, and from that dark pillar
would sprout the termite fungus, turning it a light beige colour, and in their last video
three weeks ago, the fungus poop structure looked like this, with the fungus’ signature
white fuzz, called the mycelium and the white buds known as mycotetes, which the termites
eat.
But three weeks later, their fungus structure just astounds me!
Have a look!
Man, these termites have been busy, and I love that they haven’t obstructed the view
with soil.
Alright, so here you can see the fungus castle they’ve constructed.
As mentioned it’s all made of poop, but as I said before, this poop structure is vital
to the colony’s survival.
On this poop castle grows the fungus that the termites eat, specifically the white buds,
the mycotetes.
You can see the mycotetes sprouting from the arms of the poop structures.
The fuzz you see, as mentioned is the mycelium, which are kinda like the fungus’ roots.
This entire fungus castle the termite are tending to is truly healthy!
So the termites actually only eat the mycotetes, and the availability of these mycotetes for
food, is truly evident.
The colony now has a tonne of workers at different stages, and a healthy pile of eggs.
The workers from here on in will be nourished by the mycotetes the termites farm so the
workers will start to get bigger and more healthy than the first pioneering generation
of workers which lived off the liquified king and queen tissues.
What’s amazing about all this is that these termites are among the very few animals known
to man, that actually actively farm their food source.
Besides us humans, there’s a species of weevil called Euops chinensis, that tends
to and farms its symbiotic fungus growing on leaves; there’s a longfin damselfish
that farms its symbiotic species of algae; of course all species of leafcutter ants are
also active farmers, collecting leaf pieces which they cut from plants and trees, bringing
the pieces back to the nest, and chewing them up to create a mulch comb on which their symbiotic
fungus food grows; and finally these fungus-farming termites of ours, which create poop combs
seeded with their symbiotic fungus spores.
The fungus spores actually come from mushrooms which sprout out of the top of the nests of
mature colonies of these termites, and are carried by winds to cover the detritus over
a huge area, detritus of which these termites collect, ingest, undergo a special biological
process within their gut via special symbiotic microbes and enzymes which scientists still
don’t understand, and then the resulting poop forms this termite fungus-growing comb.
It’s truly special to be able to see it, as these combs are usually farmed within darkened
chambers underground.
The name of the fungus farmed by our termites by the way is called Termitomyces, named because
this species of fungus only grows in termite nests on the termite combs the termites build.
Now one thing I notice, which is pretty cool, is if you look towards the top you can actually
see where the more fresh poop has been laid.
It’s darker in colour, but soon it too will become light as the fungus takes over it.
The mycotetes possess asexual spores which will eventually spread to this fresher poop
area and become another fruitful arm with the mycelium and more mycotetes for the termites
to eat.
Isn’t that just amazing?
Now, I really noticed this fungus comb exploding in size when I offered them something new.
The termites you saw foraging at the start of the video, are bringing back their latest
craze!
Here is a new piece of wood.
It’s decaying palm tree wood and the termites totally love it, more than the acacia wood
I’ve been offering them.
I think their termite fungus prefers this type of wood much better, and somehow the
termites know this and so they’ve been busy bringing back chunks of this palm wood to
the nest for the colony to ingest and poop out to add to their fungus comb.
Even if these palm wood chunks don’t contain the Termitomyces fungus spores, the termites
can still use it to grow their fungus now once eaten and pooped out, because of the
ability for the mycotetes to produce spores for the continuation of the fungus, regardless
of what the digested detritus is.
Growing this fungus comb will now be easier from here on in.
As for the king and queen, they look nice and fat again, fatter than when I first caught
them, which means they’ve also been filling up on mycotetes.
I just love it, guys!
So for now this entire setup will work, but not forever.
Eventually the colony will need to expand, where they will need to create chambers for
fungus combs this big, as well as an official royal chamber where they imprison the king
and queen, the latter of which will eventually grow their iconic sausage abdomen producing
eggs like crazy.
But in order for all of this to happen, I plan on placing this entire container partly
submerged in soil, within a larger terrarium designed specifically for them, where the
colony will have no choice but to expand their chambers into the available real estate outward
from the test tube.
I don’t want to change things up too much just yet because they seem to be doing really
well in this setup, but as soon as I see this test tube truly filling up with workers and
fungus comb, that’s when I’ll be moving them into a terrarium!
As for the other termite colonies we’ve been following, there isn’t much to report,
but Colony C has been doing pretty well.
Their poop structure has expanded now, looking like a cool starting skeleton of a comb.
They also have plenty of eggs and workers.
The poop structure looks like it is starting to brown with tiny micotetes showing up here
and there, but the progress of their poop castle isn’t anywhere near as flourishing
as our other colony.
I also have provided them some palm tree wood, which they absolutely love and have even started
build little soil tents around it, which is a great sign.
But at least we have this colony well on its way to glory.
Now at the start of the video, I mentioned that I’d be needing your help and it’s
this.
What type of terrarium should we move them into?
Of course, the terrarium will need soil, but should it be a diorama-style terrarium where
it looks like a huge landscape shrunken down to size, or should it be a more natural-looking
terrarium, perhaps designed like a tropical field floor, like the natural habitat in which
they reside in my yard.
Let me know in the comments which terrarium design you prefer for our beloved termites,
because I’m starting to brainstorm their setup now and would love your input on terrarium
design.
And so, AC Family, this is the update on our termites.
All of this is truly such an honour to witness and film because as mentioned, in nature all
of this incredible termite farming we see here, happens within the sacred privacy of
their nests, unseen by us people, but now we can be among the first in the world to
watch the process happen.
For those of you who’ve been following this termite series, you already understand why
this is huge because the Termitomyces fungus, once mature, i.e. growing in copious amounts
on huge combs, tended to by millions of termite workers, eventually sprout primordia, which
are a different type of white bud, that become actual mushrooms, which sprout up and out
of the termite nests to help the entire termite fungus cycle happen all over again for Macrotermes
gilvus termites throughout the region.
Now these Termitomyces mushrooms are actually a delicacy and very tasty.
I can attest to this, but the problem is, humans can’t grow these termite mushrooms
in a lab, nor farm them in the same way that we farm other edible mushrooms.
We need the termites and their special set of gut microbes and enzymes to get these mushrooms
to grow!
The termites hold the secret to growing the termite mushrooms!
To this day, if we want to eat these tasty termite mushrooms, people must gather them
from the nests of these termites at a special season of the year.
In addition, it is suspected that in order for the fungus combs to sprout the primordia
and create mushrooms, there needs to be a lightning storm to happen.
Mushroom gatherers usually wait until after a lightning storm to go hunting for these
highly prized termite mushrooms.
Amazing to think that somehow an electrical charge may be involved in the process of the
termite fungus life cycle.
Nature is just crazy, right?
There are still a lot of mysteries surrounding the termites and the symbiotic Termitomyces
fungus they farm.
But with us now on our way to creating a flourishing Macrotermes gilvus termite colony in captivity,
we can now possibly be the first to grow the Termitomyces mushrooms in captivity, making
our termite keeping endeavor valuable to science!
This to me is extremely exciting, and as we together, AC Family, are caring for our termites,
giving them all they need to do their thing, we get closer and closer to unravelling all
these scientific mysteries surrounding these termites and the fungus they farm!
And so, if you haven’t yet do SUBSCRIBE to the channel to be part of this incredible
journey of discovery with us, and as always, do hit the LIKE button to let youtube know
that our videos are indeed worth sharing to new audiences.
Thank you so much for the support guys, and for giving these little creatures which, like
ants, most of the world sees as pests they want to kill, a chance to win over your hearts.
And my hopes is that this termite series might
inspire others to not use pesticides in their yard, so that the important life that live
there, like these amazing termites which live in my yard, can do their thing, thrive, and
be fruitful, which in the end also benefits us humans.
I can’t wait for our termite colony to be massive and for us to one day look into their
grand setup, and find huge termite mushrooms we can collect and eat with pride!
Until that titanic day comes, thank you all for watching and supporting the ants and termites
of our Antiverse.
It’s ant and termite love forever!
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