How hard do you work to acquire the food you eat?
What goes into ensuring you have a meal on your table every day?
In this week's epic ant video, we observe how much our ants go through to acquire their
food every day.
Today we take a look at how the Hacienda Del Dorado is actually one big lethal, death trap
for outside insects!
We will watch how insects trapped inside the Hacienda Del Dorado manage to survive or faily
to survive, and we will watch what the Golden Empire, our yellow crazy ants, go through
to hunt, subdue, and protect their daily food.
And, what is this?
Green-coloured ants?
Find out why green worker ants have begun to appear in our yellow crazy ant colony!
You won't want to miss all of this mind-blowing ant-action and discovery ahead so keep on
watching until the end, and just a hint... the ending may shock you!
AC Family, let's join the Golden Empire on their daily journey from hungry to full, as
we witness the sheer power of predation, in this week's episode of the AntsCanada ant
channel.
Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel, and hit the bell icon.
Welcome to the AC Family!
Bon appetite!
Welcome to the Hacienda Del Dorado, our huge estate belonging to the Golden Empire.
For those of you who are new to the channel, this home and ant colony has come a very long
way, and has eveolved and changed so much from from its beginings.
The Hacienda Del Dorado is certainly a marvel, full of living plants which provide the ant
colony nest structure, landscape, and humidity.
It is also home to various creatures like the Springcleaners, a colony of Springtails
which depend on the ants for their garbage which they feed on.
Recently introduced, were pitcher plants, which have since formed a symbiotic relationship
with the ants, providing the ants with sweet fluids while the ants dump their leftover
insect parts into the pitcher plants.
But one thing that some of you may not know, is that this terrarium and world of inter-connected
organisms is very much so like a creature of its own, an ominous beast, swallowing the
unsuspecting that may fall prey to its jowls.
You see, if you look just above the Hacienda Del Dorado, you'll see the windows I often
keep open to the outside.
The lighting system which I have installed over the Hacienda Del Dorado inevitably end
up luring nocturnal insects into the ant room every single night.
In fact, so many insects end up entering from the outside that the house geckoes which discreetly
frequent my condo have learned to commune in my ant room every night to feed on the
insects that are unlucky enough to land on the walls and ceiling.
Here is a baby, who is wondering why I'm around, filming him when usually I am fast asleep
in another room by this time.
He dashes for the darkness of my bathroom.
The outside nocturnal insects attracted by the Hacienda Del Dorado lights, inevitably
end up wandering into the Hacienda Del Dorado where the glass ceiling ends up trapping them
inside, where a hungry colony of yellow crazy ants awaits to catch them.
The Hacienda Del Droado is very much alive and a complex predator.
By morning, the sun comes streaming into the Hacienda Del Dorado providing the plants with
abundant energy to grow and photosynthesize.
Small jars of honey lay available to the ants to drink from and acquire their needed sugars.
Ants have begun foraging and hunting well before sunrise.
Watch how they wave their antennae in the air to smell for any traces of insects nearby.
An ant's best sense is their sense of smell, and they can detect if prey lays nearby using
their super sensitive antennae.
The insects that were trapped overnight and have managed to evade being captured, are
at this time tiring and are most vulnerable to falling prey.
The Golden Empire is on the prowl every morning to find these weakened insects hiding among
them.
One of such unfortunate insects hides, sitting perfectly still lest a nearby ant would feel
its vibrations or see its movement.
Can you spot it here?
Look carefully.
Its colouration helps it camouflage perfectly in the foliage.
Keeping still for its life, a moth hangs from a leaf, hoping to go unnoticed.
It releases no pheromones, as it rests to regain energy in hopes to find a way out of
the Hacienda Del Dorado.
Members of the Golden Empire march eerily around it, but can't seem to find it.
This moth likely spent the whole night trying to fly towards the lights expending the energy
it needed to hopefully find a mate and breed before it died in a few days.
Its life now is numbered, and hopefully it managed to pass on its genes before being
trapped here.
It does look like this moth, however is doing a good job at not being found.
So is this one.
Sadly, some moths were not able to evade the hungry Golden Empire.
This moth landed in the wrong spot, and was found immediately.
It tries its best to struggle and free itself from the clutches of the Golden Empire, but
it's no use.
It's too weak to successfully fly away and the ants carry it back to the nest to consume
and feed the young.
Despite the amount of insects that end up getting trapped within the Hacienda Del Dorado,
the ants still require feeding.
In the wild, an ant colony is collecting food 24 hrs, so in a captive setting, they require
one time big time feedings on a daily basis to meet the nutritional needs of the colony.
So let's feed the Golden Empire, some tasty, gut-loaded roaches!
Dropping our first roach here.
Watch as the ants discover it and inform the rest of the colony that food has dropped out
of the sky.
It isn't long before a blanket of ants cover the area.
Ants around the cockroach release large amounts of their "food signal" pheromone informing
all nearby ants that food is present and to spread the news by releasing more "food signal"
pheromone.
Let's add another roach.
Look at all those ants.
It's feeding time for the Golden Empire!
And wait a sec, are those green worker ants we see?
Where did these green ants come from you ask?
Well, I forgot to mention that for fun, I dyed this honey blue, and well, yellow crazy
ants plus blue honey equals green ants.
Now check this out, AC Family!
Watch how workers rush to excavate a pit beneath the cockroaches so that they can better conceal
their prey from other interloppers who might steal the roaches.
Their current plan is to build a soil dome over the sunken roaches while the colony can
get on with breaking down the roaches to consume them.
But, let's see what happens if we decide to cause some rucous here and act like another
animal coming along to steal their food, like a bird that came along and wanted to take
advantage of the free meal.
Let's use this barbeque skewer!
As I poke around the cockroaches, the Golden Empire is immediately alarmed and mobilizes
to defend their prey.
Ants bravely race up the barbeque skewer spraying formic acid.
If this were a bird, it would be causing some serious damage!
Check out what the Golden Empire did to my bird when it managed to break into the Hacienda
Del Dorado in this video on my daily vlogging channel.
Oh and don't forget to kindly subscribe to that channel while you're there!
As the Golden Empire has in the past, these ants have defeated this quote unquote bird
that has tried to steal their bounty!
It is important that the ants do all they can to process these cockroaches as quickly
as possible, and defend it at all costs, because if they lose this meal it could mean death
for the colony, because for all they know, they may not find another meal in days.
For the Golden Empire, every prey caught means life, babies fed, and queens nourished enough
for ample egg production.
Food means colony success and losing food means colony death.
The Golden Empire has now changed their plans.
The alarmed ant colony has decided that these cockroaches are no longer safe in this location
so they act quickly by pulling the cockroaches to safer grounds.
They have decided that these roaches are better off in their nest for further processing,
than out here in the open.
Ants are still working at removing dirt and debris to help drag the cockroach easier.
Wow!
Look at these worker ants lifting this huge wood chip which is many times their weight.
Such an impressive feat of strength.
Over the next few minutes the ants work hard at dragging these roaches into their nest,
which would be about the weight of an elephant had the ants been human-sized.
And perhaps the most impressive thing about all of this AC Family, is you don't see a
single ant stopping to feed from the cockroaches during this entire process.
The main focus of each ant was to get this food relocated to a place free of any disturbance.
I couldn't see ants feeding from the roaches which could weigh the food prey down and possibly
delay the process.
Instead, every ant seems to be on the same page, orchestrating a massive food transport.
It seems the ants have an innate understanding of the big picture.
It was truly inspiring to witness.
Just as I was about to sign out and leave the ants at peace to deal with their food,
a tiny glimmer of sunlight caught my eye.
It was an ant carrying a wing, but not just any wing.
Upon closer inspection, I couldn't believe my eyes.
It was the wing of a queen alate.
To my surprise, this was evidence that the Golden Empire was now officially producing
alates, reproductives, and if my suspicions were correct, these new young queens have
been breeding!
Oh boy!
AC Family, something tells me things are about to get interesting in the Hacienda Del Dorado.
Alright, AC Family.
What do you think?
Man, I don't know what I would do if this colony started producing more egg-laying queens!
Speaking of growing colonies, if you haven't caught last week's episode, we're taking your
votes as to which colony should move into a new terrarium that recently became vacant
in my ant room.
Watch that video and leave your vote, and if you already voted, and this video changed
your mind, go ahead and feel free to change your vote!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would just like to watch
some extended play footage of the Golden Empire handling their roaches to the sounds of some
relaxing music.
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week we asked:
What amazing thing did the Golden Empire
do to the pitcher plants in the Hacienda Del Dorado?
Congratulations to Puppy Gamer who correctly answered:
The Golden Empire started feeding the pitcher plants
their leftovers.
Congratulations Puppy Gamer you just won some of our new 100% clear tube connectors from
our shop.
In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What creature other than the ants, feeds on the insects that enter my
ant room at night?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free ant t-shirt from
our shop.
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we release a brand new ant video every single
Saturday at 8AM EST.
Remember to please Like, Comment, and Share if you enjoyed this video!
It's ant love forever!