Oh man!
Guys, this week something truly incredible happened!
On this channel, we’ve been raising and following the lives of 6 starting termite
colonies over the past several months, each with a Queen, a King, and their first generation
of termite workers.
But these termites are pretty unique and different from your every day ‘run of the mill’
termites that feed on the wood of your home.
These termites are known scientifically as Macrotermes gilvus, and are actually “farmers”.
They have evolved to farm fungus from decaying material mixed with soil, a special type of
termite fungus known as Termitomyces fungus, whose mushrooms sprout from the mounds of
these termites and are a favourite of many people around the world.
I’ve eaten one of these termite mushrooms in a previous episode, and man was it delicious!
Anyway, mature colonies of these Macrotermes glivus termites create these pretty intricate
fungus combs, sorry trypophobes.
The fungus the termites eat are those little white buds you see growing from the comb,
which are packed with nutrients.
The fungus combs themselves are a mix of digested decaying material, soil, and Termitomyces
spores.
The Termitomyces spores come from the mushrooms that sprout from other termite mounds, after
having been carried by winds and dispersed throughout an entire area, covering literally
everything, including decaying material which the termite forage for.
Inside the termites’ gut, the mix of ingested spores, decaying matter, and soil undergo
a special biochemical process that scientists still don’t understand, and the resulting
poop creates this fungus comb with growing fungus, which the termites continue to cultivate
and add onto more and more as the colony grows, providing a constant food source for the termites.
But in nature, getting the fungus comb to actually start is the hardest part and the
majority of starting termite colonies fail at this stage.
Without a starting fungus comb on which to grow their needed fungus, the queen, the king,
and all the workers would completely die out.
We on this channel have been determined to get our termites to start their own fungus
combs.
One of our colonies even accepted a piece of fungus comb from another wild termite nest,
but this still didn’t guarantee success because this fungus piece, would eventually
need more decaying material to grow and survive, necessitating the termites to actually break
out of the comfort and security of their founding chambers to forage for decaying material.
I placed decaying material inside the termite setups in hopes that they would pass this
ultimate test of survival to build their fungus comb.
Up until now, we’ve all been eagerly waiting to see any sign or evidence in any of our
starting termite colonies, that that fungus comb building process had begun.
But guys, I’m happy to announce, the wait is finally over!
Behold the long awaited termite “Pillar of Life”!
The fungus comb process has begun!
What I managed to film this week will truly blow your mind, as it did mine.
Welcome, to the AntsCanada Ant Channel, Termite Edition!
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Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
AC Family, I’m going to go over each colony and cover their progress!
I’m so excited because I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been waiting for this
day forever, the day the termites would build this Pillar of Life, which I’ll get into
more in this video!
But guys, just a hint: stay tuned until the end of this video for the surprise ending!
Now let’s get to it.
I have lots to show you, AC Family!
Now let’s first start with this colony, whom we’ve been calling Colony A.
We saw in the last video on these termites, that they had already created a cool tunnel
from their birth test tube to this rotting piece of wood, which means they were already
feeding from the wood and hopefully starting their fungus comb.
Sadly, because the termites had piled soil all around their test tube we couldn’t really
see if they actually were building their fungus comb or not, but we hoped they were!
This week, check out the tunnel the termites made!
The termites had continued to build all around the wood, which meant the termites were indeed
consuming its fibres.
Hopefully, the wood contained the necessary Termitomyces spores the termites needed to
create their comb.
I was hopeful that it did, and again though I still couldn’t see what was going on inside
Colony A’s test tube, I had an inkling they were working hard to get that fungus comb
started.
All of this was pretty good, considering we discovered that this colony had workers that
were infested with mites!
Colony B had failed in a previous video, so moving on to Colony D first real quick.
This colony built themselves a mud dome to live in, concealing themselves from view,
and eventually also showed evidence of foraging, but I have not seen any change since their
last video.
I hoped they too were busy starting up their fungus comb somewhere in the darkness of their
mud dome.
Alright, Colony C now guys!
This is where things start to get real interesting!
So, if you remember their last video, the termites strangely began to create these odd
mud platforms.
I wasn’t sure what they were because starting fungus combs allegedly look like this.
Pillars of termite poop that start off dark and extend upwards, not flat like this.
Well truth is AC Family, I still to this day don’t know what those flat mud platforms
are, but the colony seemed to be doing well.
It had a full out soldier now and lots of the workers had matured.
To me, it seemed that this colony was now ready for the introduction of decaying wood,
like the others.
But before I show you what happened when I added the decaying wood, let’s move on to
Colony E first.
Colony E strangely hadn’t shown evidence of wanting to forage for decaying leaf litter
and wood that I placed into their setup.
This was the colony that actually adopted the fungus comb piece from another mature
termite nest, that I gave them.
Though it did look like the termites were farming this little piece, I knew they would
eventually need to add onto it, to continue the growth of the comb, which meant sooner
or later the termites would need to forage for decaying matter.
Inside, I actually wasn’t even sure if the termites knew what to do, because in this
case, I had artificially started them up with the fungus comb piece, not how things would
work in the wild.
Well, AC Family, I was quite surprised because check out what I spotted when I peeked into
their setup two weeks ago.
A tunnel!
I even spotted workers running around in there.
The tunnel extended up two edges and turned to jut outwards towards the lid.
This was great!
The termites knew they needed to add to the fungus comb to keep it alive and knew exactly
what to do.
The termites were however tunnelling the wrong way.
The detritus was down here.
I hoped they would eventually find it.
I couldn’t wait to see if they would.
Two weeks later, my mind would be totally blown away!
I peeked into the setup of Colony E. The termites had extended the tunnel further, and further,
and further.
They had almost reached the lid now, but there were no termites in this tunnel.
I soon found out why!
Looking below, I spotted this.
Yay!
They had built another tunnel, this time right to the decaying wood!
Awesome!
The termites had finally made a connection to the detritus source and I caught a few
workers going about their business inside the tunnels, during the day.
It was interesting to note that during the night, when I thought the termites would be
more active, there were no workers in these foraging tunnels.
But it was good to know that the termites were now commuting back and forth, eating
the decaying wood, surrounding soils, and hopefully more Termitomyces spores, and pooping
out the mixture to add onto their adopted fungus comb piece which I introduced, which
by the way, I wasn’t sure was even still around.
Perhaps it had all run out, or was close to running out, thereby prompting the workers
to be like “Hey, guys!
It’s time to collect more detritus to feed this fungus!”?
It was hard to tell, as the termites had also obscured things in their test tube with soil.
I was hopeful this colony would make it on their fungus comb building journey, and we’d
soon be able to see a growing fungus comb ball somewhere in this setup.
But though we really couldn’t see anything in all these previous colonies’ setups,
now it’s time to show you the most visible colony in our collection - Colony C!
I had placed in a piece of decaying wood two weeks prior, and one thing I noticed was that
the termites had joined one of the mysterious mud platforms to the wood.
The termites were clearly interested in this wood piece, and soon I would see why, because
looking at the colony, I couldn’t believe my eyes, when I spotted this!
OMG!
The fabled termite “Pillar of Life”.
AC Family, what we are looking at here is the start of this colony’s termite fungus
comb!
Ahhh!
I was truly thrilled!
I couldn’t believe they had done it!
It doesn’t look like much now, but this little dark pillar of termite poop was the
starting structure of the termite comb, containing the predigested wood, soils, hopefully spores,
and whatever else the termites add in there via special gut enzymes and microbiota, to
cause the Termitomyces fungus to grow on it!
This dark structure would eventually turn light brown, like in mature fungus combs that
we’ve seen in the past, as the fungus starts to feed from it and grow.
I was ecstatic!
Isn’t that amazing, AC Family.
The termites had successfully begun the fungus comb building process.
Now, I should note that I don’t know for sure if there were termite spores somewhere
in that pillar mix, but so far it did seem like the termites were tending to that Pillar
of Life, caring for it and maintaining it like a farmer would a starting crop.
The success of this pillar of poop means life or death for these termites, so it’s understandable
that they wouldn’t allow this pillar to break, mold up, dry out, or whatever else
could happen to a starting termite fungus comb to cause it to falter.
In terms of our other termite setups from our previous video, I tried placing some decaying
wood into the colony that concealed themselves in mud, but I still don’t see evidence of
foraging yet.
Perhaps the colony was still too young.
The other termite colony in a petri dish was still too young for wood, so I decided not
to give them some yet until they were more mature.
Over the next few days, I noticed that the Pillar of Life had been added on to, and was
longer now but starting to tilt to one side.
How interesting!
My guess was this would eventually continue to grow in size and gradually form a comb
shape?
Not sure, but apparently, once the comb is fully complete and the Termitomyces fungus
starts to really flourish, that is when the termite colony will explode exponentially
in population, because they would now have a constant supply of food!
All I needed to do from then on was provide the colony with a constant supply of decaying
wood or leaves, so they could continue to add on to their fungus comb, as the colony
grows!
I can’t wait for that population explosion to happen as things would get really fun from
there on in, having to think of how to expand the setups!
There were exit holes already in place, for when that expansion phase would be needed!
But isn’t what we saw so far pretty amazing?!
I think so.
As an ant keeper that is largely unfamiliar with keeping termites as pets, observing these
termite colonies and learning about their very unique lives, has been quite an adventure
of discovery, and something totally new!
To think that these termites, as well as other fungus-growing species of termites, go through
all this trouble to get their fungus combs started, with totally high stakes, as the
lives of their king and queen royals, as well as their future colonies, depend on it.
So far we see that at least Colony C had made it to this stage, and some of our other colonies,
also showing promising evidence that they too might be at the fungus comb-building stage.
I couldn’t wait to see what was ahead for these termite colonies, and in my heart, it
was a sincere honour to be able to witness it all, in light of the fact that all this
usually happens within the darkness of their nests in the wild, completely away from human
sight.
What a cool opportunity to see it all happening in real life!
Now before we go, let’s move on from termite keeping to ant keeping for a sec.
I wanted to quickly announce that now is the perfect time to get into the ant keeping hobby,
as we are having an incredible holiday sale at antscanada.com, where we are offering 10%
off on all ant farms and outworlds at the shop!
Plus, you can get a free ant keeping handbook when you use the coupon code: antscanada.
Just add it to your cart when you order and punch in the code to get it for free!
Our ant keeping products make a great gift idea for all your ant and nature-loving friends
and family.
I’d love for all of you guys to keep ants with us!
If you need ant colonies, we even have a section on the website where you can source locally
caught and raised ant colonies with a queen for your ant farms.
Just a note that you must order today Dec 10th, if outside the US, or Dec 17th if within
the US, if you hope to receive your package before Christmas.
Whatever the case, this promo ends January 1st, 2023 so you have time.
Also worth noting, we don’t guarantee pre-Christmas delivery, and duty charges may apply for non-US
residents.
Thank you all for watching.
I will surely keep you all update on the progress of our termites, and hopefully one day have
a massive termite colony to call our own, growing delicious mushrooms that we can relish!
It’s ant and termite love forever!
Wait a sec!
Is that what I think it is?
OMG!
Colony E has also constructed their pillar of life sideways, and look.
I see brown, and white buds growing on it!
Termitomyces fungus confirmed!