Ever wonder what happens to human snot after you’ve flicked it out into the world?
Well, naturally nature takes over.
It’s broken down by a myriad of microbes, fungi, as well as lucky soil creatures that
may happen to stumble upon your nasal contribution to the ecosystem.
Which is why, in the name of science, I sought out to find out exactly how my favourite soil
creatures on Earth, ants would react when presented with human quote-unquote “booger”.
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Now guys, I know what some of you may be thinking: He’s officially run out of ideas guys!
Well, no.
I’ve been wanting to do this very experiment since I first started this channel a decade
ago, and I’m glad I finally did, because through this experiment I was actually able
to learn a thing or two about snot, and the ants’ reaction to it actually surprised
me.
I think it might surprise you, too, so keep on watching until the end, and guys keep in
mind while watching this video, it’s all in the name of science, as we approach this
rather puerile experiment with an open mind and maturity!
Alright, so the first thing I needed to do was actually harvest the snot.
And at the time of commencement, I didn’t have it in me, to harvest, literally.
My reserves were empty, so for a whole day, I had to just live life normally until my
nose had collected enough.
Now before we go ahead and introduce the snot sample, let’s quickly meet the ants who
will be participating in this experiment.
This here is my beloved 5 month-old pet fire ant colony, we’ve named on this channel
the Phoenix Empire.
They’re a massive family of hundreds of thousands of fire ants, we’ve raised together
and watched grow up on this channel from just a single queen ant, named the Ember Empress.
Their great kingdom of interconnected living chambers is called the City of Ashes.
The colony feeds from a diet of roaches and sugary foods.
Now, ants happen to be one of the worlds’ top detritivores, helping with breaking down
organic matter, so ants dealing with your snot in the wilderness, isn’t too far-fetched
an idea.
Now before actually offering my snot to the ants, I had to do some initial research first,
to figure out if this would be safe.
I didn’t want to do anything to kill the ants or negatively impact their health.
And turns out, snot is actually just dried up mucous.
In fact the scientific term for snot is ‘dried nasal mucous’, but for simplicity, let’s
just call it snot for now.
It’s purpose is to act as an immune defense binding to dirt, pollen, dust, microbes, and
viruses thereby keeping these foreign bodies from entering your lungs.
It’s composed mostly of water, proteins, fats, sugars, enzymes, and debris.
Theoretically, ants could possibly find some nutritional value in human snot, but it was
time for us to actually find out, in this unconventional yet interesting experiment.
Here we go!
AC Family, behold!
The snot sample we’ll be presenting to the ants.
I’m so sorry, to all those who find this gross, but again… it’s for science!
Now, turns out I couldn’t procure a large enough snot sample, so this snot isn’t mine.
A friend was kind enough to volunteer to donate this snot for our experiment, because that’s
what friends are for, right?
My plan was to offer the snot placed on this platform, to be placed into one of the ants’
feeding chambers, where we could clearly see the ants’ reaction.
Now before we go ahead and offer the snot to the ants, it’s time for all of you watching
to form a hypothesis.
How do you think the ants would react to the snot?
Do you think the ants will find it worthy of a taste?
Or will they find it unfit to eat and ignore it?
Will they come swarming in droves and devour every last crumb?
Or will they bury it?
Leave your guesses in the comments section and at the end of the video go back to your
comment and let us know if you were right!
OK, guys, this is the weirdest experiment I’ve ever done in my life, but let’s do
this!
Placing the platform into the fire ants’ territories.
Now let’s watch.
For the first little while the snot just lay there.
Then ants began to appear on the platform.
The ants traveled all around the snot but didn’t seem to notice it.
I guess it didn’t give off any kind of smell that attracted them.
And then suddenly, contact made, Two ants came around to smell the snot.
It seemed interesting to them.
They then went off, possibly to call the colony?
I wasn’t sure if they were leaving the “I found food” pheromone now.
Only time would tell.
Over time several ants came around to smell the snot with their antennae, but never spent
much time around the snot.
Perhaps the snot wasn’t so interesting?
Small ants came around to inspect, as well as big ants.
One ant even attempted to pick up the huge chunk of snot and carry it home, or maybe
to their garbage site.
Who knows?
At this point it was hard to tell what the ants thought of the human snot.
I mean, they didn’t totally ignore it.
They certainly found parts of it interesting and possibly edible, but they weren’t swarming
forth from the nest to devour it, either.
Ants took tastes of it, investigated its nooks and crannies for possible edible bits, and
lifted it up.
Let’s watch a few more reactions to the snot.
As the ants continued to show part interest in the snot as a food source, I began to wonder
if it was because the snot had by now dried.
After all, ants have a preference for soft, moist foods, like the inner guts of insects.
So I decided to see if adding a drop of water to rehydrate the snot would make any difference.
A few hours later, this is what I saw.
Feeding.
The ants had used pebbles and debris to soak up the excess moisture as they typically do
with wet food, and began to chow down on the snot edibles.
They weren’t swarming, so perhaps it wasn’t the tastiest of meals, but they did find some
nutritional value in it, in its softer form.
Gross but, interesting results, wouldn’t you say, guys?
Well, was the ants’ reaction what you thought?
As I watched the Phoenix Empire feeding on the snot chunk, it made me realize that every
little thing we put out into the world, including our so-called waste, can offer some value
to other life forms.
Any bi-products we procure, excess matter our body gets rid of, regardless of how small
and insignificant, doesn’t just sit there out in the world.
It becomes valuable food to other organisms.
I’m sure this snot would have been broken down further by springtails and various molds,
had it been left out for several more days.
From the microscopic dead skin cells we release into the air by the simple act of scratching,
which goes on to become food for dust mites, to our urine and feces which travel from our
toilets and eventually become food for plant life, nothing our bodies cast off as waste,
goes to waste and is cherished by other organisms.
I guess the saying we all heard as kids “digging for gold” referring to when someone picked
their nose, was, from a scientific standpoint, not too far off after all.
Thank you all for watching, and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s unconventional snotty episode?
For those of you with pet ants I don’t recommend you feed them snot, but nevertheless this
was truly interesting.
So much more ant discovery is ahead, 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.
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 watch extended
play footage of the ants reacting to the snot.
It’s quite fascinating!
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:
How do the fire ants get their nest humidity?
Congratulations to LP who answered:
They get humidity through the evaporation of water from the reservoir that moves up
into the nest through micro-holes in the floor.
Congratulations LP, 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 human snot made of?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free ebook handbook
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!