I feel most people either find ants gross or even fear them, while others don't even
notice them, and some even hate them, especially fire ants!
But let me tell you, as ant keeper of many years now, every single day, I am reminded
of how epic and mind-blowing ants really are, and most especially fire ants.
So today I wanted to take you on a journey, for a more intimate and deeper look into my
tiny city of fire ants, whom you guys have voted to be called The Fire Nation, and show
you just how miraculous ant life truly is, by using fire ants, perhaps the most hated
ants of all as our subjects.
We'll even get to meet the most important member of the ant colony who has been there
since the genesis of this now massive ant colony - the queen.
You won't want to miss this incredible ant tour so keep on watching until the end.
AC Family, let's gather round my ant room for another epic session of ant watching,
and see what the world doesn't know about the secret lives of these creatures called
fire ants, why they are hated globally, and what it is truly like to live as an ant within
the colony, along with our royal highness, in this info-packed episode of the AntsCanada
Ant Channel.
Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel, and hit the bell icon.
Welcome to the AC Family.
Get ready to be mind-blown!
Who needs nature shows.
Just watch this channel.
Enjoy!
People ask me why I am so crazy about ants.
After all, they're pests, especially these fire ants, which most of the world loathes.
Well, I see things a little differently.
First of all, not all ants are household pests, but for this video, let's focus in on fire
ants.
I get why people hate them.
They appear in huge numbers, eat our food, leave us with painful stings, cause short
circuits in our equipment, and during floods, they even survive by forming massive rafts
to float on water.
Not even water, can kill fire ants!
These fire ants that you see here, like most fire ants are a very invasive species, and
many countries including the US and quite recently countries like Japan have put such
fire ants on their "biohazard list of pest species to quarantine".
The Fire Nation here is a species known in the scientific world as Solenopsis geminata,
and let me tell you, it is super famous, or should I say infamous, because it has successfully
invaded pretty much all of the world's tropical and subtropical countries.
It's hard to find a tropical place in the world that hasn't been conquered by these
ladies.
In the USA, these girls, as well as the more prolific species, their cousins Solenopsis
invicta have invaded and become the source of many problems in human populated areas.
Now when I say "invaded" it means these ants somehow were introduced to a given area and
spread like wildfire (no pun intended) colonizing and establishing themselves in that place.
Now the reason why this process of invading can be a bad thing for an area, is because
like most animal and plant invaders, what happens is the invading species becomes a
competitor to native species and can displace them, destroy them, and/or even overconsume
resources like food.
Essentially, when you have an invasive species of any animal or plant move into a new place,
it affects the entire ecosystem of that area.
In the case of the Philippines, where I live, where the queen of this colony was collected,
these fire ants invaded many years ago and today mostly occupy cities, and luckily have
not wiped out the native ants which now generally tend to stay outside of the cities, at least
for now.
Locals here are used to seeing fire ants in homes and know to stay clear of them because
they sting.
But in places like the US, fire ants have become a major agricultural pest, killing
native ants and contibuting to the destruction of important crops due to their tendancy to
tend plant-destroying aphids as a food source, aside from their nuissance as stinging house
pests.
But what makes fire ants such destructive forces of nature throughout the world?
To better understand fire ants, you have to look at where they came from.
The dangerous fire ant species the world hates, originated from South America.
Let's go there!
It's amazing to think that the jungles of South America helped create through evolution
these highly adaptive, prolific, and destructive ant machines known as Fire Ants!
The terrain there is very diverse and hostile, a habitat full of predators, extreme climate,
lots and lots of rain, and just full of many other ants, insects, and creatures competing
for the same resources.
In the jungles of South America, survival of the fittest certainly applies!
So it's no wonder that evolution and natural selection helped give rise to the ever impactiful
fire ant.
No wonder they produce so quickly, in such huge numbers, have the power to destroy ecosystems,
deliver such painful stings, and even are capable of floating on water during floods.
Their native place of origin made them that way!
In fact, a lot of the world's problematic and invasive species of ant originated in
South America, like argentine ants and rasberry crazy ants.
But the next question is, how then did they get around and migrate to other parts of the
world?
Did they develop airlines, too?
Well, believe it or not.
That's not too far from the truth.
We humans flew them, sailed them, drove them, and cargoed them around the world.
The export of plants from South America in the plant trade, as well as any cargo for
that matter, including produce, all contributed to the worldwide spread of Fire Ants.
They actually migrated to other parts of the world via trojan horses and are still doing
it to this day.
There really is no way of stopping them.
Governments now try inspection and some even spraying of all items entering a country.
During a recent trip to Borneo, I was surprised to learn Malaysian government requires all
planes to be sprayed with pesticide prior to landing, and they asked all of us to simply
cover our noses while flight staff fumigated the entire cabin.
But even then, after all the precautions, all it takes is one single pregnant queen
ant hiding somewhere to start an entire massive and growing ant colony in a new place.
And speaking of a single pregnant queen ant, back to my ant room.
Let's meet our Royal Highness, shall we?
Here lies the entrance of what you guys have called the Blaze Maze, a recently installed
AC Hybrid Nest 2.0, our newest flagship formicarium available at AntsCanada.com, and the Fire
Nation here has made it their new lair.
Opening it up, right at the heart of the Blaze Maze is a mass grouping of worker ants, and
if you look closely you will see deep inside the mass of worker ants is the queen.
She is bigger, and wow check out her completely bloated gaster, just full of eggs.
The technical term for this condition of gaster bloating due to eggs is "physogastrism".
Now in a previous video, we mentioned that this queen lays many eggs every few minutes,
and one of you guys wrote to me asking how this was possible seeing as, if she was constantly
laying eggs every couple of minutes, that would be some pretty fast egg development
inside her.
Well, what I failed to mention in that video was that she isn't always laying eggs.
In many species of ants, the queen has egg-laying seasons, periods where she will be popping
eggs out like crazy, as seen here.
This queen of ours is in her egg-laying period.
But there are also times when she is not laying eggs, and is simply producing more eggs within
her.
It seems in our video from a few weeks ago, you guys spotted the queen dashing away from
our camera, but if you look closely at her, her gaster was not as physogastric, not as
large as it is now.
So at that time, our queen was in her egg-laying break period.
She also didn't have as many ants completely clamouring all around her at that time like
we see here.
For those of you who keep ants in North America, Europe, Australia, and other temperate regions,
you will also notice these egg-laying breaks througout the year and throughout all of winter
time.
Now, AC Family, are you ready to be mind-blown?
What is truly miraculous is how these fertilized eggs are created inside the queen, and to
learn about that, let's go back to two years ago when this queen was still a virgin.
So at some point in our queen's life, she belonged to another nest of another mature
colony somewhere here in the Philippines.
She was born with wings, from another founding queen of her birth colony.
Now during mating season prior to rainy season, she emerged from her birth nest, took off
into the air along with all her fellow queen sisters, and so too did her winged brothers.
So get this, in this massive one month a year event, called the "Nuptial Flight" all fire
ant colonies' virgin queens and males of her species throughout all of the Philippines
took to the air at the same time, and engaged in a huge mating session.
Can you believe it?
Every year, completely by instinct, biological clock, and cues from weather, the fire ants
throughout the country release a specific pheromone which floats through the air to
signal all fire ant reproductives to fly in this Nuptial Flight month, a yearly ritual
that has remained unchanged for millions and millions of years, and this is how it happens
for almost every ant species in the world.
Every species has their given Nuptial Flight season in the year, and the ants fly and mate
in the same way.
So our queen, after having mated with several male ants, who by the way, die after mating,
dropped to the ground and broke off her wings.
Can you imagine that after using her flight equipment, she no longer needs it so it is
completely discarded.
Talk about body mutilation!
Then she proceeded to start her own colony somewhere else, and as she was wandering around,
she was captured and cared for, and eventually ended up in my ant room to start her own growing
ant colony, which became what you guys now know as the Fire Nation.
It's amazing to think that this massive ant colony started with just this single queen
ant?
And what's even more amazing?
Just that one day of mating was enough to allow her to produce fertilized eggs for her
entire life which could span multiple decades!
Yes, she has a special organ in her body called a spermatheca which keeps all that sperm collected
during Nuptial Flight viable, and she releases each sperm cell to fertilize one egg inside
her for years and years to come.
Talk about the perfect ant-manufacturing machine!
It just blows my mind how amazing this queen ant is.
By the way, guys, now that the Hybrid Nest allows us to actually see her and check up
on her periodically, should we give this queen a name?
AC Family, leave your name suggestions for our Royal Highness in the comments section
and I will choose my favourites for the entire AC Family to vote on in a future video.
So once an egg is laid, one of these worker ants grabs it and proceeds to place it in
an egg pile somewhere in the nest.
All these eggs will be workers, except prior to Nuptial Flight season where some of the
eggs become alates, i.e. reproductive queens and males.
When the eggs hatch, the larvae are transported to a larva room, a sort of nursery where they
are fed and constantly licked clean by the workers.
The workers who are all their sisters feed the larvae via trophallaxis, a process where
they essentially regurgitate stored food within their crop, or social stomach.
Food which was put deposited there from either a previous meal, or via trophallaxis from
a fellow sister worker ant.
Tropallaxis is a great way for ants to distribute food to one another so that only a few ants
ever have to leave the nest to physically find and eat the food in its raw form.
Everyone else just stays home and waits for the food to be delivered.
Eventually these larvae grow and become pupae and are then placed into a pupae incubation
chamber where they are allowed to develop into adult ants.
By the way, these chambers for eggs, larvae, and pupae, are always changing in location
depending on ideal environmental conditions for each stage.
Usually the most humid rooms are delegated for eggs and larvae, while the warmest rooms
are for pupae.
Some species of ants will even bring their pupae to the upper most portions of their
ant hills in order to "bake" the pupae under the sun's heat to speed up development of
the pupae into adult worker ants.
The faster ants can get the young to adulthood, the better because a larger work force means
greater survival rate for the ant colony.
And that AC Family, is the miracle of ant life.
Can you see why ant lovers like myself are crazy about ants?
They are just mind-blowing creatures designed to survive and proliferate efficiently in
their extensive undeground cities.
Though most of the world might dislike ants, they still are pretty amazing creatures, essential
to the environment and important for our survival.
They are vital predators, decomposers, pollinators, seed-distributers, and prey items in ecosystems
around the world.
And now the next time you see an ant, you know where it came from and what it took for
it to get there.
Thanks for watching another episode of the AntsCanada ant channel.
This is AntsCanada signing out.
It's ant love forever.
Alright, AC Family, aren't ants the coolest creatures?
Now that you know how cool they are, I hope all of you guys get the unique opportunity
to keep ants yourselves and observe them in the comfort of your own home as pets.
The ant farm set up you see in this video is available at AntsCanada.com.
I will leave a link in the description box to a complete easy-to-use kit called the All
You Need Hybrid Nest Gear Pack for you to check out if you would like to try ant keeping,
and just a note: we do ship worldwide, as well as offer starting ant colonies with a
queen for sale from ant keepers who may be from your city through our GAN Project, an
initiative to helps lessen the spread of invasive ants while helping the ant keeping community
grow, so watch more about that in this video here.
Promise, you will find ant keeping to be super fun and educational, and for all you parents
out there, it's an awesome way to bond with your kids while learning about nature.
It would be super cool to keep ants together with you, guys.
AC Inner Colony, of course, I have also left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would
just like to watch some extended play footage of the Fire Nation living in their setup.
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week!
Last week, we asked:
The fact that the fire ants chose to keep mostly larvae in the new
Hybrid Nest indicates what?
Congratulations to Emerald Lion 1717 who correctly answered:
The fire ants chose to keep mostly larvae in the new Hybrid nest
because it has more humidity.
Congratulations Emerald Lion 1717 you just won a free AC Test Tube Portal from our shop!
In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What is the technical term for the condition of a queen ant's
gaster that is swollen with eggs?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free ebook handbook our
shop!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help us keep
making more.
It's ant love forever!