I’m sorry, guys!
I’m sad to say, that over the past few weeks, I’ve been watching our new colony of golden
spiny ants, we’ve named the Blades of Midas, in their new terrarium home and have a look
at what I’ve been seeing.
Tonnes of dead ants being carried around.
It’s always super sad when an ant colony fails to adapt well to captivity, which in
ant keeping can happen for a number of reasons.
Perhaps the colony might not be adjusting to the captive diet I’ve been offering them.
The roaches and superworms, though gut-loaded, might simply not be nutritionally enough to
sustain the demands of the ants.
Perhaps the environment, which we so carefully crafted to the best of our ability, to cater
to their biological lifestyle, was not conducive to the survival of the colony.
It was with a heavy heart that I concluded this week that the Blades of Midas, our beloved
golden spiny ants were on the road to fizzling out in numbers, and I was preparing to tell
you all in this week’s video.
Well, AC Family, that was until I made a certain epic discovery completely by accident that
totally changed everything!
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AC Family, man has it been an emotional week for me!
You guys won’t believe the incredible discovery I made just yesterday regarding our Blades
of Midas, our golden spiny ant colony, so do keep on watching until the end for the
twist surprise.
But for those of you who are new and just joining us, just to recap, earlier this month,
I was given this large colony of a couple hundred ants known as Polyrhachis ants, more
commonly known as Spiny Ants.
They’re called spiny ants due to their awesome body spines which characterize the genus,
in which there are actually hundreds of diverse species.
This particular species has an awesome shiny gold colour and we all fell in love with the
colony at first sight.
So I went straight to work and began to build them a terrarium kingdom fit for a golden
spiny ant colony, complete with soil, plants, rocks, and driftwood.
The finished product looked splendid and we called it Polyrhaxia.
Polyrhaxia was perfectly designed to house the Blades of Midas, and cater to their very
unique nesting behaviours.
You see, another thing that makes our spiny ants special, other than their spines, is
that spiny ants in the wild create these awesome nests above ground, among sticks, onto rock
walls, and in trees using collected mud and debris, all glued together using the silk
from their larvae.
Spiny ants have always been a dream of mine to keep because of these cool mud and debris
nests, and I just always dreamed of having a spiny ant colony in a terrarium full of
these awesome debris nests.
Only problem was, nearly all attempts I tried in the past, failed.
My spiny ant colonies would die out and not last past a few weeks to a few months.
I had so much hope that this time around the Blades of Midas would prevail and become that
thriving spiny ant colony I always dreamed of.
Which is why, AC Family, my heart completely sank this week, when I noticed this looking
into Polyrhaxia.
This is what Polyrhaxia looked like as of a few days ago.
Not much change.
The plants were all adapting well to the soils and growing healthily.
The soils themselves were sustaining a new thriving population of isopods.
Polyrhaxia, as a bioactive terrarium, was doing extremely well.
But as for the ants, in the weeks leading up to now, I was hoping the colony would move
out of this crumpled up paper towel which was part of their original container they
came in, as well as this AC Test Tube, also a part of their original setup.
You see, I was banking on the ants setting up their iconic mud/debris nests somewhere
high up in the driftwood, either here to the right of the terrarium or somewhere here on
the left.
But after four weeks of waiting for the ants to construct, I saw no iconic mud nest being
built.
But there was one thing I noticed, more and more, that as the weeks went on, brought a
worrying feeling to the pit of my stomach.
AC Family, look!
Ants carrying dead bodies.
At first, it was just a few, maybe 4 or 5 workers carrying the dead around.
But as time went on, the dead became more and more.
This week, I counted about 20 dead worker ants being carried around.
No!
Were the worker numbers of the Blades of Midas decreasing drastically?
Well, there was only one way to find out.
A couple members of your AC Senate, i.e. revered members of this channel, whom you can actually
see in the comments section with coloured badges next to their names, who get special
sneak peek access and perks to there behind the scenes stuff for the channel, advised
me in a community tab post to try removing pieces of the crumpled paper towel bit by
bit.
And so AC Family, this week, in order to see if the Blades of Midas were truly decreasing
in numbers and were on the road to dying out, I decided it was time to try to dissect the
paper towel.
Could the hundreds of workers that we initially placed into Polyrhaxia be simply hiding still
within this crumpled bunch of paper towel?
Or was the colony truly dying out.
If we didn’t see hundreds of spiny ants within this paper towel, then we knew for
sure our beloved Blades of Midas had failed to adapt under our care.
I held my breath as I grabbed one part of the paper towel and gently lifted it up.
Nothing underneath, just some isopods.
I could see some gravel glued to the bottom with ant silk.
There were a few ants reacting to the disturbance of my hand but not hundreds.
I began to pull apart the paper towel to access the inside.
I could hear my heartbeat reverberating in my ears.
I saw some chambers created with silk and a few ants, but again not hundreds.
There seemed to also be a lot of isopods in the chambers, not a good sign.
A left over roach exoskeleton, some old ant silk and debris.
As I unraveled all the pieces, my heart sank as I knew I had to face the harsh reality.
AC Family, I’m sorry.
The colony had truly died out over the past four weeks.
The once hundreds of workers had vanished.
It was so sad to add the Blades of Midas to the statistic of Polyrhachis ants that failed
under my care.
It’s such a disappointing feeling when an ant colony you’ve been banking on doesn’t
do well, and even more disappointing having to deal with the feeling that I’ve disappointed
you, AC Family.
Though I realize that ants dying happens in this hobby of ant keeping, it still doesn’t
make it any easier.
I had such high hopes for the Blades of Midas.
Perhaps I just have poor luck with Polyrhachis ants, guys and shouldn’t take on keeping
them again.
I resolved to simply keep caring for the remaining survivors, whom I could see were still living
within this AC Test Tube.
I estimated there were about 50 or so survivors left in the colony.
Such a waste to also have to get rid of Polyrhaxia, this terrarium, once the ants had all died
out.
It was doing so well.
The next morning, I noticed one of the sugar test tubes had gone dry.
So as I always do, I moved in to replace it, but when I lifted the test tube, my eye caught
something peculiar.
A smooth surface.
Wait a sec!
What is that?
AC Family, do you see what I see?
That!
It looked like a smooth skin… a membrane!
My eyes widened as I began to realize what I was looking at.
OMG!
This was not just any membrane!
This was a silk wall!
No way!
I removed the second test tube which housed the colony’s fresh water, and AC Family,
what I saw was nothing short of magical…
Ants came rushing out of a hole I had made by removing the test tube.
What?!
In fact, removing the test tube had created a long hole, a slot that now revealed a secret
and darkened cavernous area that extended far, deep into the recesses of the driftwood!
I then spotted the tiny head of a larva spinning silk to begin repatching this long hole I
had made by ripping away the test tube!
An ant came with a piece of debris to help with repair.
AC Family, this was a nest!
The Blades of Midas had not died out after all!
They had secretly been constructing a debris nest right where I had hoped, at this spot
in the driftwood, under the test tubes using sphagnum moss.
Wow!
My dream of having a spiny ant colony building a nest in a terrarium had come true!
I tried to make out the borders of the nest.
From what I could see the ants had formed a sphagnum moss ball into an opportune cavity
in the driftwood.
All this time a nest was here and I hadn’t seen it!
Talk about the ultimate nest camouflage!
So sneaky these ants!
There was surely no way an enemy bird or lizard would be able to tell a nest was here.
Not even I saw this nest being constructed and I watched these ants daily!
And as for the ants carrying around the dead, perhaps the ants were just dying out naturally,
and the queens of the colony were still constantly laying eggs and replenishing the worker force
as they normally would.
This was all truly heartwarming and such a relief!
Our Blades of Midas were doing well and had acted exactly as I had hoped they would, as
I watched them quite quickly patch up the tear I had unknowingly made to their moss
nest.
Now that’s an efficient repair team that needs a raise!
So, I will continue feeding them the gut-loaded roaches and superworms that I’ve been giving
them, as well as the sugar water in test tubes, and speaking of the water test tubes and sugar
water test tube, I decided to tuck them away somewhere out of view.
I also finally decided to remove the AC Test Tube Portal from Polyrhaxia, and as for the
ants inside the AC Test Tube I also tucked them away out of view towards the left side
of tank, in hopes that they would decide to build a satellite nest there.
Wasn’t this great, AC Family!
I began to add a few drops of water to simulate a rain shower over the nest, and man, look
at all those ants!
There’s the hundreds of workers we were looking for.
The main colony was certainly living in there, so the nest space inside I imagine must be
pretty extensive!
I knew the ants would benefit from this freshly moistened sphagnum moss.
Some ants even drank from the fresh water drops.
As I watched the ants swarm like they were performing a massive spiny ant rain dance,
around their pretty awesome, perfectly camouflaged moss nest, I felt super lucky that we finally
had a spiny ant colony acting exactly what they would have in the wild.
Lucky that together with you, AC Family, we had this super unique and special peek into
the secret lives of these spiny ants, like a little chunk of nature that was ours to
watch whenever we wanted.
In a matter of minutes the swarm of ants had disappeared back into their cozy moss nest
to roost.
It’s these kinds of moments that remind me why I love being an ant keeper so much,
and it also reminded me that in life, regardless of how many times you fail, it’s always
worth trying, over and over again, because sometimes, you never know when your greatest
dreams might actually be in the process of construction, right under your nose… or
test tube!
It seems the Blades of Midas, our beloved golden spiny ant colony is on their road to
glory, and you better believe I’ll be documenting their continued progress, as their awesome
moss nest and colony expands more and more over time.
Thank you all for watching and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!