Oh man!
This time, I believe I've crossed the line.
A couple weeks back you watched as my massive pet fire ant colony, you guys have named the
Fire Nation, devour an entire mouse and reduce it to bones.
You've seen them consume an entire chicken head, and totally hollow out a bird-eater
tarantula.
It's clear the Fire Nation is a ravenous and hungry kingdom of ants.
But we can't let the Fire Nation have all the fun.
This week, I made the decision to bestow yet another gift unto one of the ant kingdoms
of the Antiverse, our great Ant Room, and after careful deliberation, I decided that
this week, we would give our Big-Headed ants, a supercolony you guys have named, the Bobbleheads,
the meal of their lives!
AC Family, I dared for the very first time, to give my ants an entire turtle, and what
they ended up doing to it, will leave your jaw on the floor, and totally leave you disgusted!
In fact, while making this video, I almost puked.
You'll see exactly what I mean soon!
Brace yourselves, everyone, as we finally revisit our glassless antfarm's mystical shores,
of the Islands of Avista, and watch how our Big-headed ants, the Bobbleheads handle eating
an entire turtle, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel!
Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the BELL icon.
Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the mystical double floating island we know on this channel
as Avista.
To the unfamiliar eye, it looks like just an ordinary planted bonsai, taking up a tight
corner of the Ant Room, but to those of us who are familiar with Avista, we know that
this bonsai, hosts a mighty kingdom of the most resourceful Avistan inhabitants.
They, of course, are the Bobbleheads.
Now this colony is definitely one of my favourites, as they've gone on to become so industrious,
running an entire operation in the trees.
You see, these Bobbleheads are animal farmers, and more specifically, dairy farmers...
Well, not exactly cow milk, but these big-headed ants have learned to care and nurture a symbiotic
community of mealybugs in order to collect a bi-product they excrete called honeydew.
Check out those ant dairy maids, as they tenderly stroke the mealybugs, their ant cows, to stimulate
them to excrete the sweet honeydew, which they drink up happily and take back to the
colony in their social stomachs within their bodies.
They're truly efficient at running food operations.
But sugary foods alone cannot completely nourish the ants.
The Bobbleheads, also need their meat, and they're not about to kill the mealybugs, who
supply them with their sugar source.
AC Family, take a look down towards ground level, where it looks like a big commotion
is happening.
The ants are working together to excavate around this massive superworm, which recently
fell from the skies.
It was way to large to readily fit into their nest entrance, so the Bobbleheads have been
working tirelessly for the past half hour trying to mine around the superworm in order
to fit it into their underground lair.
It's super important that they do this as swiftly as possible to avoid thieves from
stealing this divine gift from the gods.
Watch how persistently they work, AC Family!
I love watching them do this!
They even leave their garbage at a garbage site for me to clean up weekly.
I can always depend on them to leave their trash all in the same spot for me to collect.
They even have their second island territory connected by a wooden bridge, to frequent
and inhabit.
I hope to expand their territories to a third island soon.
So as you can see, the Bobbleheads are an active and functioning ant colony who have
clearly figured things out over time and fallen comfortably into routine.
But AC Family, I felt it was time to shake things up a bit on the thus far, predictable
floating islands of Avista.
It was time to drop another gift of gold from the skies, a gift that I was eager to see
how they'd deal with!
Here we go, AC Family.
And now, behold!
Our great golden gift for the Bobbleheads.
A dead Golden Thread Turtle.
This juvenile turtle had just freshly died.
A friend of mine who owns a local pet store, who also happens to be one of us AC Family,
watching these ant videos, contacted me to ask if any of the ant kingdoms wanted to feed
on a freshly deceased turtle.
Of course, I, the Creator of Worlds, accepted this, as I've never before fed a turtle to
my ants.
And after seeing how the Fire Nation reduced the mouse to bones, the chicken head to a
zombie chicken, and the bird-eater tarantula to an empty shell, it made me curious as to
how the ants were going to deal with this turtle, which anatomically was quite complex.
First off, the turtle's shell was practically impenetrable.
Turtle shells are made of pure solid keratin, the same stuff as our hair and nails, but
I couldn't imagine the ants being able to get into the turtle through the shell which
protected both the top and bottom of the creature.
The turtle's skin was also very tough.
It felt like the thickest of leather which I felt not even a sharp pin could penetrate.
My guess was the ants were going to burrow into the turtle's eyes, nostrils, mouth or
perhaps its anus?
Well, AC Family, it was time to find out.
Let's give the Bobbleheads this gift of a lifetime!
I carefully placed the turtle onto Avista, where the ants were already active and wandering
about.
It wasn't long before first contact was made by a few curious Bobbleheads.
They curiously investigated this massive dead dinosaur that fell from the skies.
And before long, the rest of the colony was notified, and ants came rushing out of the
nest to investigate the huge carcass.
The Bobbleheads immediately identified this dead turtle as food and, as predicted, were
showing signs of choosing the turtle's head as their point of entry.
Also as predicted some ants were busy investigating the tail end.
The ants were rather chill about it all, which made sense as, the turtle wasn't moving so
it wasn't posing an immediate threat nor putting up any sort of a fight, but it did look like
the Bobbleheads had a certain plan in mind.
I noticed some of the ants carrying pieces of debris around the turtle.
Were they planning on burying this huge turtle?
I was interested to see what the Bobbleheads were up to, and what their strategy was at
consuming the turtle.
Little did I know, we were in for a jaw-dropping and even disgusting treat coming up ahead.
A few hours after the introduction, I came back to Avista to check up on the ants' progress
on the turtle, and this is what I saw.
A swarm of ants digging into the turtle's eyes.
The Bobbleheads had deployed some supermajors to help slice open the eye lids so they could
get into the soft interior of the turtle's head.
Slicing and dicing are the supermajor's specialty.
Check them out, AC Family!
What do you think?
How long do you think the ants will take to consume this turtle?
Leave your guesses in the comments and go back to it later to let us know if you were
right!
Day 2...
Over night, the ants had successfully tunneled into the turtle's eyes and into its head.
Well that didn't take very long!
Surprisingly, it also looked like the supermajors had at one point dedicated their slicing powers
to cut up the turtle's skin at the neck!
Have a look!
Perhaps they realized the skin was way too tough, and abandoned that operation once the
ants found another way inside.
But here's the thing that I found peculiar, AC Family.
Have a look at the eyes for a sec.
Although the eyes were now gaping caves, it didn't seem like they were busy entrance points
for ant traffic.
I only spotted a few ants entering through the eyes.
It only told me the ants had found another way in, and this AC Family is where things
get really disgusting.
In fact, I almost puked at the discovery!
By Day 3, I could clearly see that the ants had established some kind of entry point into
the turtle that wasn't the eyes, but rather somewhere beneath the turtle.
They had piled dirt to form large entrance ways which lead to the darkness underneath
the turtle.
So of course, I had to see what they were up to.
AC Family, are you ready for this?
My plan was to pick the turtle up and see what was really going on underneath.
Here we go, guys.
I had no idea what to expect, but based on the growing smell of the three day old turtle
carcass, I was prepared for gore... but was soon going to discover that I was in fact,
not prepared for what we were about to see next!
I picked the turtle up.
Immediately, I saw tonnes of ants scrambling around from catacombs they'd set up underneath
the turtle with brood!
Interesting that they found the area below the turtle a suitable place to store the babies.
I investigated the turtle.
The ants were definitely coming in and out of the turtle, but from where?
I carefully turned the turtle, and that was when it hit me!
A huge wave of the most horrible stench of rotting turtle meat, wafted everywhere as
red bodily fluid gushed out of a huge cavern created at the inner thigh of the turtle.
This was their entrance point into the inside of the turtle.
Check it out!
That gaping hole goes right into the turtle's body!
Oh man!
It was then that I began to gag.
The smell was just so unbearable now, that I just had to put the turtle back down and
leave the Ant Room for the night, until all the rotting stench had subsided.
The Bobbleheads which were initially a cute, sugary sweet ant kingdom in my mind, were
now suddenly, the most savage of amazons with a hunger for rotten reptilian flesh.
I would never look at the Bobbleheads the same again!
By Day 4, it seemed the turtle was no longer a site of major activity.
Ants were no longer seen entering and exiting the holes below the turtle.
I had assumed that it meant the ants had taken all the nourishment they had needed from it.
The smell had also subsided, thankfully.
But one thing I did notice was the Island of Avista was almost completely deserted.
I couldn't see many ants foraging the surface, as they usually would.
This to me, meant the colony was not hungry.
It seems the turtle had given the Bobbleheads their fill for the time being.
And though this entire process was pretty gruesome to witness and smell, it did satisfy
me to know that the ants were at least happy with full bellies down there below the soil.
.....And AC Family, check out what was left of the turtle as of this morning!
A completely hallow shell, which the ants left for me to clean up, as per our usual
arrangement.
Isn't that something?
What we witnessed today, once again AC Family, was a process of Mother Nature, that despite
turning our stomachs, to the ants, was a thanksgiving feast and a golden gift from the gods.
Different frame of reference indeed, right AC Family, and yet another display of how
varied and multi-faceted, Mother Nature truly is.
The death of one creature meant life to millions of others, and that was something, I, as their
Creator of Worlds, could stomach.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed this visit to the mystical double floating ant
island of Avista.
Enjoy your dinner tonight, guys!
Haha!
AC Family, did you enjoy today's episode?
It was awhile since we updated you guys on the Bobbleheads on Avista so I was happy to
revisit the islands even if today's episode was super gross!
There is still much more ahead in the Antiverse with the other ant kingdoms, so guys if you're
not subscribed yet, be sure to hit that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now so you don't miss
out in the real life drama of the inhabitants of the Ant Room.
And don't forget to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now!
It would really help a lot!
Speaking of ants, it's officially nuptial flight season in the Northern Hemisphere,
and a lot of you are catching queen ants now, and in case you didn't know, we've got all
the top of the line ant keeping gear for you ant keepers at all levels from beginner to
advanced, as well as a tonne of new and exciting products for the ant keeping community not
available anywhere else, so head on over to AntsCanada.com, and browse through our shop.
We ship worldwide, and offer full email support if you need us.
We also have ant colonies with a queen available in most regions so go check us out and pick
up your ant farm kit and ant gear today!
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 watch extended
play footage of the Bobbleheads doing their thing!
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week!
Last week we asked:
What is a Claustral Cell?
Congratulations to Matthew Kim who correctly answered:
A claustral cell is an ant queen's first home where she starts laying her eggs.
Congratulations, Matthew Kim, you just won a free e-book handbook from our shop!
In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What do the Bobbleheads do with their garbage?
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!