Greetings ant lovers. Welcome to the ants Canada YouTube channel and yet another ant video
I'm Mikey Bustos aka Ants Canada and this is a video about my newest ant colony and project, my Oceophylla Smaragdina
colony, commonly known as Asian weaver ants
Weaver ants are definitely among the coolest species I've ever owned and I'm housing them in my living room of my
Condo here in Manila Philippines
The species is native to Asia and Australia and is
completely arboreal so I designed a 2 foot, by 2 foot, by 3 foot tall enclosure just for them
and within it
I've planted some sapling fruit trees.
You see these weaver ants are cool because they build their homes by
pulling leaves in these trees together and they sort of glue them in place by using the silk secreted by their larvae
You'll get to see this really cool process of weaving their leaf nests together later on in this video
So be sure to watch till the end
Okay, so let's start with how this colony first started
This species is very common in Manila and with the help of a friend
I was able to acquire two weaver, ant nests collected from a single guyabano tree in a yard
if you look here
you'll see that these ants are kept in their open top setup, by way of a petroleum jelly laid on thick both vertically
and upside down
Lucky for me
Vaseline actually works to keep these ants inside
The plants I've chosen for the setup are, calamansi, a small green citrus fruit there on the left of the screen and
A young chico tree, there towards the upper right.
You can see the guyabano nest clipping secured there on the bottom right
It seems here in the philippines these ants prefer to nest in fruit trees so, in housing these ants
I had the challenge of having to grow small trees in an indoor setup
My hope was to try to bonsai these trees by cutting them back as they grew to sort of dwarf them
Weaver ants aren't really a commonly kept ant species and though there have been a few blogs and articles about them
It seems little is known about their captive care, so I knew I had to sort improvise as I went along
Now I knew the vitality of these ants depended greatly on the vitality of the trees that they were to inhabit
So housing young trees in an indoor setup meant that my lighting needed to be just right
This set up sits right in front of a north facing window that receives direct morning sunlight for about two hours
So I have a spotlight on after that to provide the plants with continued light for the entire day
Large screen ventilation holes were cut out in four areas at the sides of the enclosure
So that the enclosure doesn't get stuffy or stagnant
Now I know these ants were very energetic ants, so from day one
I provided the colony with a bowl of cotton
soaked with sugar water to give them the energy the workers needed and they instantly took to that.
I also noticed that they keep the bowl clean of Debris
Sometimes flower petals from the Calamansi Tree fall into the Bowl
and I noticed that the workers will carry this Debris away to dispose of somewhere else
Perhaps the ants recognize that they need to keep this sugar source as clean as possible
One of the things I found very interesting was their willingness to forage at ground level
While a lot of the ants foraged up high in the enclosure
there were still many, many workers willing to come down to ground level to visit the sugar bowl and look for food
In fact the workers would not leave any corner of the enclosure unsearched
The ants were very active both in the day and in the night
Now you might have noticed those giant test tubes hanging there towards the back
I've placed those there to provide water if ever they needed to drink.
I also wanted to place those test tubes there in case the ants didn't want to move into the trees that I provided them
as I knew from past experience that a weaver ant colony living in a wilting home
which eventually would happen to the guyabano tree clippings, would eventually move into a giant test tube
if it was provided to them. So those test tubes were there to also provide a sort of backup home
In case they didn't want to move into the calamansi or chico trees
For the substrate, I wanted to use something light and water absorbent, so I chose coconut husk as a filler
But the trees themselves are grown in Rich soil and were kept in the plant bags in which they were sold
So I just basically covered these plant bags with this coconut husk and with some spagna moss
This means that to water the trees, I needed to water the soil directly at their base
I also make sure to spray the plants every evening or whenever it rains outside here in Manila
I use purified water, so that unsightly calcium deposits don't form on the acrylic
All right, so enough about the setup. Let's move on to the ants
Feeding the colony sugars was quite easy
But protein was sort of a challenge
The ants would not take super worms or mealworms and at first they liked feeder roaches
but eventually, it got to the point where sometimes they would eat them and at other times
I discovered that the ants would just dispose of them somewhere.
Here you can see the ants seizing a cockroach nymph
Weaver ants use a cool tactic of grabbing the prey from all sides using their mandibles and also using those strong legs
which specialize in gripping surfaces, and they just pull
The weaver ant stretched the prey item until it either rips it apart or dies from being sprayed with formic acid
Now I've cared for many, many ants in the past, but there's something really unique about these ants that I find really appealing
Perhaps, it's because it seems like they've got large projects in their mind, like they're always busy with something
Just look at them. It looks like they've each got a certain project duty to do, very big plans
During the daytime, I love watching them. They do some really cool, unique behaviors that I've never seen in any other ant
One of these behaviors is the way they form these long chains using only their bodies
You can see them starting off here
It starts with just a few members, and then it grows and grows
Really kind of neat
But sometimes they change their mind and it dissolves
They really are so funny and they have such character
Now you might notice the size difference of the workers. There are some workers which are really large
perhaps over one centimeter long and some that are really really tiny. Some as small as under half a centimeter
It's the smaller ants that hang around the nest and specialize in taking care of the brood and of the queen
Most of the ants that venture out of the nest to forage, are the larger ants
Whatever the case, these ants are pretty darn cool
So finally, on to what these weaver ants are famous for
Nest building
As their name suggests, these ants are masters at weaving leaf baskets or
more like gluing leaf nests together, and it was definitely something
I was looking forward to observing in keeping these ants
I did have my doubts though because in the past I'd failed getting these ants to nest on plants both fake and real
And I also wasn't sure if the ants would be willing to move into sapling trees
as opposed to full-grown trees as they would in the wild
I also didn't know if they were willing to transfer tree species. This colony was collected from a guyabano tree
But I was hoping they were transferred to either my calamansi tree or my chico tree either way
I made sure to provide the colony with lots of sugar water
just to provide them the energy they needed in case they needed to create a nest
And then on the fourth night of them living with me in my arboreal setup, something truly magnificent happened
The weaver ants decided to Nest built into the Chico Tree
I freaked out!
I went to grab my camera and tried to film as much of it as I could
The best part about it, was the ants couldn't have chosen a better place to build their nest
Right in a corner against the acrylic, which meant I could see and film everything
Just watching those worker ants gripping onto the leaves
pulling them into place while other ants grabbed la, a process that up to that point
I'd only seen on TV and in videos
But being able to witness them in real life was truly an honor
The moment was magical,
humbling, and I felt truly honored to be able to witness such a fantastic event
It's definitely something. I'll never forget
And so, the next day to celebrate such a titanic event, I gave my colony a new food Manger
and some crickets. Turns out, the ants love crickets
And behold their final construction, that came together in just a single night
Fantastic! I couldn't believe I could see everything inside the nest
Larvae,
pupae,
workers,
everything.
I could even see ants that were eating some of the crickets. It was just fascinating
Check 'em out guys!
Look how busy they are in there! It's packed!
The thing that I found cool was that the webbing was used for more than just gluing the leaves together
They actually used their larvae to spin silk walls and create floors which lined each chamber
It was just amazing architecture
To me creating something like this overnight is comparable to erecting a skyscraper way up high into the mountains
in just 10 hours
every night I peek into the nest and I discover [that] there's always something new. There's always some new brood in there a
New room, a new floor, a new leaf glued on to the construction. It's really amazing to see the nest come together
And I know, what some of you might be thinking
Have I seen the queen?
Well, no, I haven't, but you know what, I'm okay with that
They've given me such an amazing peek into their private lives, and I know that they've stuck cameras into these weaver ant nests before
But it really is different having them in your living room
Discovering these weaver ants and discovering how they live has truly been a fascinating experience, for me as an ant keeper
And every night as I watch these ants swarm as a single colony,
it really secures in my mind why I love keeping ants so much
They really are dynamic,
industrious, and just all-around cool
Thanks guys for watching this video and please don't forget to comment, share, and subscribe to my videos. This is Ants Canada signing out.
Hey guys, thank you so much for watching this video, and you guys know the drill, if you enjoyed this video
please be sure to subscribe to our channel. Also be sure to check out some of my other cool ant videos
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