The definition of the word sustainability means "the ability to be maintained at a certain
rate or level" or it can also mean "the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources
in order to maintain an ecological balance."
It's been a reoccuring and common theme these days, in the advent of climate change, human
over-population, the burning of the Amazon, over-farming, and mass extinctions of flora
and fauna worldwide.
Perhaps we humans are still trying to figure out how to exist sustainably, so that we don't
come face to face with own extinction.
But I feel the answer to our global challenges can be found all around us, if we only looked
closer, and indeed, I've witnessed an innate understanding of the principles of sustainability
within a glass terrarium in a darkened room, we on this channel call the Ant Room, our
Antiverse.
Meet the Emerald Empire, a colony and species of ants that create nests out of leaves using
the silk from their larvae.
Over the past few months that I've had the greatest honour of caring for them, I've realized
that these ants are brilliant ecological masterminds, that somehow manage to apply sustainable practices
to stay alive, thriving, and prolific.
From their food consumption, to how they keep the plants they live on alive, all while minimizing
their overall impact on their environment and resources, believe me, guys, this episode
will truly blow your mind!
AC Family, gather round once again, and pay close attention to these weaver ants, who,
to my greatest surprise, hold the keys to our own survival, here on the AntsCanada Ant
Channel.
Please SUSBCRIBE to my channel, and hit the BELL ICON.
Welcome to the AC Family.
Enjoy!
Welcome everyone to Vortexia, the jungle canopy kingdom contruct of the Emerald Empire, our
booming colony of Asian Weaver ants, known scientifically as Oecophylla smaragdina.
If you're new to the channel, these ants came to us a couple months ago and have proven
to be quite incredible to watch.
You see, they're not like your typical ants that live in tunnels underground and create
ant hills.
No, instead, these ants are arboreal, meaning they live in trees and build their nests from
leaves, using their powerful legs and jaws to cooperatively pull leaf edges together,
while using their silk-producing larvae like glue-bottles to fuse the leaves in place.
By the end of this video, you'll not only be amazed at what they're making here, but
also at how complex of an engineering project, this alternative ant lifestyle in the trees
actually is!
Keep on watching until the end.
So to better appreciate how crazy awesome these ants are, let's quickly rewind to what
Vortexia looked like where we left off last.
The Emerald Empire had created three leaf nests, two on this umbrella plant, and one
large one on this money tree.
These three nests were enough to provide the fairly large weaver ant colony housing for
a good several weeks, but since then, check out what the weaver ant territories look like
now!
First, the two leaf nests in the umbrella plant have long wilted and been abandoned
by the Emerald Empire.
You see, when weaver ants create leaf nests, the leaves provide the ants living within
the enclosed leaf spaces the humidity the ants' babies need for survival, through transpiration.
Basically, plant leaves naturally release water vapour from small pores, and this water
vapour makes every weaver ant leaf nest a perfectly humidified chamber for the ants
and young.
But there's a catch, because eventually the leaves used to make these leaf nests wither
and die, either from lack of sunlight or from their intense bending.
But the fact that the weaver ants have totally decided to leave the umbrella plant alone,
having built no more nests in its branches, first got me thinking that this might actually
be a strategic move by the weaver ants, and why I think they've done this will truly blow
your mind, but I'll get more into that later.
For now, let's move along to the money tree.
Here is what the money tree leaf nest from their last video looked like before, and here
is what it looks like now.
It too has long wilted, and the weaver ants had to expand eastward on the tree to this
area, then eastward further to this area, and eventually also creating a leaf nest down
here.
Now over time, the leaves of these areas have also begun to wilt, so this week, the weaver
ants have begun constructing two more giant leaf nests here and here!
Now, AC Family, this is where things get pretty mind-blowing!
There's something very intricate and astonishingly complex going on here that I can't wait to
share with you.
So these new large leaves that the weaver ants are using to nest build now, only grew
within the past month or so.
As the new branches were growing in, I was wondering when the weaver ants would start
nest building again, as I saw their current leaf nests starting to wilt, and I knew the
population was indeed growing in size, simply due to the amount of food the colony was consuming.
They were now eating three times as much compared to when I first got them months ago.
Over the past month, this money tree simply continued to explode in folliage and it was
only last night, that the Emerald Empire finally decided it was time to expand and build more
leaf nests.
To my delight the Emerald Empire began building two large leaf nests very close to the glass,
which allowed us to get an intimate peek at their building process.
Have a look!
The workers were working hard and fastiduously.
This was no small scale operation!
This would require a great deal of coordination, energy, and cooperation in order to pull off.
Some ants acted as brace ants, using their powerful jaws and legs to pull the edges of
leaves together.
You can see these brace ants here.
Some weaver ants were the gluers, holding the larvae like glue-bottles, touching the
mouth tips of the larvae onto the surfaces they wanted the silk to stick.
Once a thick wall of this silk was weaved, the brace ants could let go, revealing an
effective, water-proof and opaque silvery wall.
Other ants acted as security guards, either patrolling the area or standing still on guard,
on a constant the look out for tresspassers or predators wanting to eat them or intrude
on their work site.
These guard ants would have no hestitations to attack with their sharp mandibles and formic
acid sprays from their gasters.
Other ants acted as brood transporters, carrying the eggs, larvae, and pupae from the old nest
locations to the new nests, as they became more and more homey and ready to accomodate.
Now AC Family, here's where things get pretty amazing!
I began to think about the fact that several things needed to be taken into consideration
for all of this to really work, "this" being the construction of the new nests, and also
this periodic bouncing of leaf locations on the tree of the weaver ant lifestyle.
Upon further thought, I realized the ants couldn't possibly just eat, grow, and leaf
nest build mindlessly, because that would surely lead to their demise.
Think about it, let's look at eating.
The Emerald Empire had a very good appetite, but I did notice there were days they were
not as hungry or interested in food as others, in fact, their voraciousness kinda came and
went in seasons, especially when it came to eating insects.
There were days, the weaver ants never touched the mealworms I gave them.
Here's what I suspected was actually happening.
Are you ready for this, AC Family?
I believe the weaver ants were managing their food intake, in order to perfectly time both
their population growth and their production of young.
Managing food intake and futhermore the colony's growth was essential in order to perfectly
time when the necessary leaves were available on the money tree plant.
But it wasn't enough to wait until the first available leaves had grown into place.
The weaver ants had to wait until the tree had grown enough leaves to not just house
the growing colony, but also have available leaves to keep the entire plant alive!
Their current nests were wilting, and building new nests at the first given chance upon the
appearance of new stems and leaves would have spelled certain death of the plant, and therefor
for the colony.
So you see, guys, there needed to be a vital coordination of timing here.
Logically, the Emerald Empire had to reach a size at just the right time, when a sustainable
amount of leaves were available to house them and keep the plant alive, and not only that!
When the time came that there were enough leaves to start nest building, the colony
also had to have pre-amassed enough larvae at the same time, in order to provide the
silk needed to actually build the leaf nests.
This means then that the Emerald Empire had to manage their food intake, and limit growth
rate at first, until the tree grew bigger, and exactly a week or two before the intended
nest-building date, the ants needed to switch and eat as much as possible,
especially protein, in order to provide the queen the nourishment she needed to lay a
surplus of eggs within a short time frame, so there could be extra larvae force for leaf
gluing at moving time.
It's staggering to think, that the Emerald Empire was actually showing signs of understanding
and applying principles of sustainability.
The ants continued to work through the night.
It was clear, the Emerald Empire was most productive and comfortable to emerge at night.
I loved watching the ants gathering at the site and working.
I also thoroughly appreciated that this time the Emerald Empire was building their nests
so close to the glass!
It allowed us to capture some incredible 4K footage.
I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did!
It was almost hypnotic watching workers carrying the young into the new leaf nests.
Here is a worker carrying eggs!
Remember the time when we questioned if this collected colony had a queen, because
we spotted a dead queen when they were first moved in?
Well, we know our answer now!
Here is a worker carrying a larva to the site.
Gluer ants weaved their silken walls to a rhythm only they knew.
Have a look at the ants constructing their silk walls in the dark.
It's just a beautiful process to witness.
Brace ants stood still and reliably strong, holding the leaves in place.
As we saw in previous videos, I spotted the ants using silk ripped off from old nests
to incorporate into their new nest structures, clear evidence that the Emerald Empire were
avid believers of recycling and reusing.
They were even collecting debris to incorporate into their walls.
I don't know about you, but I could watch these ants for hours and hours, gradually
building what would be a magnificent construct of nature.
By morning, this is what the Emerald Empire's new leaf nests looked like!
The leaf nests were close to complete, and it provided the Emerald Empire some new and
valuable living space for their growing colony!
They still had some viable living space left in their old nest locations, while some of
the leaves were still green and functioning.
I wondered if the queen or queens had moved into the new nests or were stubborn and stayed
put in one of the old nests.
But the beautiful process of nest construction and planning that we discovered here in this
video, is evidence that sustainability is possible, even for humble creatures like ants
living in a contained biospace.
Now, about the umbrella plant that the ants have totally disregarded and abandoned, I
don't know if it's because the ants prefer life in the money tree plant, or if something
more calculative was at play here, but if you ask me, I suspect that the weaver ants
have collectively decided to save this umbrella plant for future use, once the day comes that
the money tree plant were to die.
Could the ants understand that the money tree also has a limited bandwidth, that one day,
the money tree won't be able to grow any more branches due to the limited space within the
terrarium.
Perhaps they know the money tree will eventually die out in Vortexia, and could be allowing
the umbrella plant to grow undisturbed to protect future real estate.
It seems the umbrella plant is already growing a totally new trunk towards the bottom there.
This trunk will eventually grow upwards birthing new folliage.
Could the Emerald Empire be planning and timing this growth to correspond with the time they
predict the money tree will die or no longer be ideal for nest building?
Will the ants choose one day to inhabit the umbrella plant in order to give the money
tree time to regenerate from all the nest building encumbering its growth.
What do you guys think?
Do feel the ants are just surviving all these changes by fluke, or could they be carefully
planning in order to live sustainably long-term?
Let me know what you guys think in the comments section.
To be honest, though it's all technically speculation, I personally wouldn't put it
past them.
There is certainly an intelligence at work here, and after keeping ants for decades,
I am a firm believer that ants are much more intelligent than we give them credit for.
There's a reason they've managed to survive for millions of years before we humans ever
appeared on the planet.
They lived sustainably, and their habits allowed them to withstand the test of time.
It made me wonder if we humans will ever find that balance, that perfect equillibrium and
lifestyle that will allow us
to coexist with all life on the planet for millions of years to come.
Perhaps we need to look no further than our evolutionary elders,
the ants, who figuratively and literally weave sustainability into their very fabric.
Thank you for watching.
It's ant love forever.
AC Family, did you enjoy today's episode?
Aren't these weaver ants incredible?
Next week, I have a special surprise for the Emerald Empire, as it will be Part 2 to this
episode and will also be a collab video with a very popular youtube channel that I'm certain
many of you already watch and follow!
I'm taking guesses!
So, guys, smash that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON for notifications now, so you don't
miss out on next week's epic collab video!
And don't forget to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now!
It would really help a lot!
If you're new to the channel, and want to catch up on all your AntsCanada Lore, feel
free to binge watch this complete story line playlist here, which traces the origins of
all the ant colonies of the ant room, so you can follow their stories and better appreciate
how these ant kingdoms came to be, and why we love them so much!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you'd like to see extended
play footage of the weaver ants building their leaf nests all to the sounds of relaxing music.
We also leave a clue as to who I'm collabbing with next week!
So go check out that hidden video!
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week!
Last week we asked:
What is your favourite thing about our new Surinam horned frog?
Congratulations to Madalina Kulcsar who correctly answered:
My favourite thing about this frog is that it partially buries it’s body and just stares
at everything going on.
Congratulations, Madalina, you just won a free e-book handbook from our shop!
In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What evidence did we see in today's video that proves there indeed is a living
queen in the Emerald Empire?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free e-book handbook
from our shop!
Hope you can 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!