Hi guys, my name’s Jordan, and in this ant room tour, I’m showcasing a new, never before
seen species, here on this channel. And they’re some weird looking things. They are the highly
mysterious and remarkable, Spider Ants.
Spider Ants, known scientifically as Leptomyrmex, are native to Australasia and rare to parts
of South America. Their common name of “Spider Ant” comes from the fact that, well, they
look a lot like spiders, with their extremely long skinny legs and small bodies.
Plus, they move in a very peculiar yet calculated motion. Very much resembling a Daddy Long Legs, or
a Cellar Spider, as they're known outside of Australia.
These ants are very mysterious in nature and relatively undocumented. Very few observations
have been recorded of their habits. Which makes keeping and studying a colony of these
guys that much more exciting. This is very much uncharted territory.
This colony here is quite a large one, with a few hundred individuals present. They were
given to me in person by one of my viewers. His only condition, I just needed to make
a video on them. Pretty good deal if you ask me!
The ants were originally housed in a simplistic “tubs and tubes” setup. Basically, just
some water filled test tubes, blocked up with some cotton, and placed inside a large plastic
storage container, which had been coated with some fluon around the edges, to prevent the
ants from climbing out. This kind of setup is a very effective way to raise ants, however,
it can make observing and documenting certain behaviours, quite challenging at times. So
using some vinyl tubing, I immediately attached up one of our large sized ytong nests, which
they quickly made use of.
Within a couple of hours, they were all settled in.
The plastic tub has now solely become their outworld area. A place where the ants dispose
of their garbage and forage for food.
Usually, before raising a particular species of ant,
I will have done lots of research on them, and have spent plenty of time out observing
them in the wild. Which usually gives me a pretty good understanding of their dietary
preferences and how best to care for them. But, because information on Spider ants is
scarce, and finding colonies of them is quite rare, at least where I’m from, here in Melbourne.
When it came to diet, I really wasn’t too sure what kind of foods they’d be interested
in. So, I’ve been doing lots of experimenting. Offering them a variety of sweets and insects.
Their favourites so far seem to be raw honey...
And fresh fruits. Especially ripe apples.
They're also quite keen on small insects, like crickets. As soon as I place one in, these ants are
all over them.
I’ve found these Spider ants rarely carry food back to their nest. Instead, they consume
what they find on the spot. Filling up as much as they can before returning to their
nest, stomachs bulging.
All ants have two separate stomachs, their personal stomach, for their own sustenance,
and their social stomach, used for storing food to later be regurgitated to their fellow
colony members, in a process known as trophallaxis.
To communicate that an ant is hungry, they’ll
stroke another's antennae, and food is then transferred from one ant's mouth, to the others.
Much like a mother bird would when feed her growing chicks.
This method of food transfer and storage means that only a small percentage of workers need
to leave the nest to forage for food. Allowing the queen and young vulnerable
ants to remain within the safety of their nest at all times.
What makes Spider ants special, is that they’ve taken this adaption of food transfer a step
further. You’ll probably have noticed these abnormally large looking ants, with abdomens
swollen up like balloons. These ants are a specialised caste within the colony, known
as repletes. These repletes have the sole purpose of storing vast amounts of liquid
foods and water. This adaptation helps the ants better survive in times of drought, when
food and water are hard to come by.
Anatomically speaking, these repletes originally didn’t develop any differently from their
regular worker counterparts. In order for a replete to be formed, as soon as they eclose
from their pupal stage, whilst their exoskeleton is still soft and malleable, they must be
quickly filled up with liquid food or water. So almost as soon they come to life, often
before they’ve even learnt how to walk, they’re filled up via trophallaxis, until
they’re almost bursting.
And then, they become a replete.
Once they’re transformed, they’ll spend most of their time relatively
immobile, restricted to the deep confines of their nest, where they’ll be safest.
Workers will often come by to either top them up or have a quick feed.
I’ve found they love gripping onto the ceilings of their nest, where they’ll hang, motionlessly.
Upon seeing this behaviour, I decided to position the nest, so it sits up vertically. Now the ants
have much more surface area to hang from and can get a better foothold.
Reminds me a little of a colony of bats.
I’m still not entirely sure why they do this. I speculate it could be in order to
lap up any moisture which seeps down from above. Shortly after I hydrate their nest
with fresh water, I’ve found the repletes are very quick to consume any small droplets
which pass them by. As well as any condensation which accumulates over time.
These repletes are highly valuable members of their colony. As I’ve noticed they’re
meticulously tended to by the workers. They’ll use their mouthparts to lick them clean, which
helps ward them off from fungal growth and lessens their chance of contracting diseases.
But there is one ant which is even more highly regarded. The queen. But finding a Spider
Ant queen amongst hundreds of her children, isn’t so easy.
The way most ants reproduce, is by sending off reproductive male and female ants from
their nest. These ants possess wings, and so, fly off in search of male and female counterparts
from neighbouring colonies, this event is known as a nuptial flight. Shortly after they
mate, the males die off, fulfilling their only purpose in life, and the females usually
shed their wings and seek out a good place to begin founding their colony, now as a young
queen ant.
What makes Spider ants unique, is that their reproductive females, and queens to be, are
ergatogynous; meaning they don’t have wings at all. Only the males do. So instead of flying
off for their nuptials, they disburse on foot.
Because the queens are wingless, they lack the prominent wing muscles, and scarring,
seen on most other queen ant species after they've shed their wings.
This makes them especially difficult to distinguish
from regular worker ants. They look almost identical. The only way to tell them apart,
is that the queen’s bodies are ever so slightly larger in frame. And if you look really closely,
they’ll also have clearly visible ocelli; a cluster of simple eyes on top of their heads.
After a full week of studying this colony, I managed to track her down. Here she is.
Notice how she looks just a little bulkier than the ants surrounding her? Her abdomen
is a similar size to that of the repletes, but as you can see, it isn't stretched out
as theirs is. And close up, here’s those ocelli I was talking about, which she uses
to aid herself with navigation.
But it goes further than just anatomical features too. I found this particular ant was being
actively groomed by her fellow colony members, more so than any other ant I’ve come across.
A common habit seen in most ant colonies. The queen is, after all, the most important
member of the colony. Without her, there’d be no new generations of workers emerging,
and so, the colony would slowly die off and collapse. So it’s vitally important that
she’s well-tended to, and remains clean and healthy.
From what I’ve gathered, very little study has been done on Spider Ant queens. A captive
colony with a present queen is an extremely rare occurrence. As far as I'm aware, this
is the first ever footage captured of a living Spider Ant queen!
Already, I’ve noticed some oddities. She’s rather unusually active for a queen. Here
she is seen eagerly tending to her larvae...
Most of the time, queen ants simply just sit somewhere deep within their nest,
conserving their energy, and focusing on laying more
eggs. So perhaps Spider Ant queens are not only similar to the workers in appearance,
but in behaviour too. Something which requires a bit more study, for sure. Although, given
how large this colony is, and how often she moves around, progress could be quite slow
on that front. Often, if I glance away for just a second, I’ll have lost her. And may
have to spend several minutes trying find her again, if I even do at all.
As the colonies has been growing, I decided to attach up an additional nest. I thought
I’d try laying this one flat and keep their original one upright. Just to see which they
prefer most. So far, they’re not too interested in the new nest, but it’s still early days.
Often, ants can grow quite attached to what’s familiar to them and can be very sceptical
of occupying new territory. I’m sure it won’t be long until they open up to the
idea and start filling it up.
I’ve also offered them some increased warmth with this heating cable here. I’ve positioned
it so it’s just touching the edges of the nests, so as to provide a temperature gradient
throughout. Allowing the ants to pick their preferred temperature levels for them and
their developing brood.
As you can see, there is quite a lot of brood. I’m expecting a huge boom in population
very soon. Most of it is in its larval stage. The stage where they develop simple mouthparts
and begin feeding and growing. They’re relatively immobile, and so, are entirely reliant upon
the ants to come and feed them. They’re fed via trophallaxis, the same process the
ants use to exchange food amongst themselves. The ants constantly tend to their needs making
sure they’re kept well-nourished and pristine.
Interestingly, I’ve noticed the ants often like to clump the larvae together into little balls.
Each larva possesses these tiny hairs which seem to be helping them grip more easily
together. And strangely, the workers, and often the repletes, tend to just hang around
with these clusters, in their mouths, with no real sign of wanting to move them anywhere.
I’m really not certain why they do this. Perhaps, this speeds up relocation time in
response to certain dangers where the vulnerable brood could be at risk, like during an attack
from a predator, like this ant eating echidna...
or a sudden flooding of rainwater...
It may also be to clear up ground space, in order to prevent the brood from being buried and
allow a easier flow of ant traffic. And/or, perhaps it makes the job of feeding and organising
them, according to their size and stage of development, a little easier too. All just
speculation. I’m curious to know what you guys think.
And what do you think of these Spider Ants in general? Pretty incredible right? They
certainly are unique ants. From their strange body structure...
to their wingless queens...
To their massive repletes...
and their bat-like nesting behaviours...
I’ve never encountered anything like them.
I haven’t been keeping these guys for very long either, so I’m sure there’s
lots of new discoveries to be made.
I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated on their progress. I plan on re-housing them
into a custom designed nest soon, something a little larger with an increased chamber
depth and surface area to allow them to hang more easily. So make sure to subscribe to
my channel and follow me on instagram for some sneak peaks on all their happenings.
A special thanks to my supporters over on patreon.
Thanks so much guys! You’re really making these videos possible.
Big thanks to my top tier supporters...
John Overton Nicholas Atkins
Matthew Diamond Andy Kerr
Alright, now onto the regular giveaway, where you guys get a chance to win some specially
designed ‘Ants Australia’ formicaria. In last video’s giveaway, I asked, “Which
of the ant colonies featured here on my channel is your favourite? And why?”
Personally, it’s really hard to pick just one. If I had to choose, I think it’d have
to be the Giant Bull Ants featured last video. They’re just so incredibly different to
most ants. In the way they navigate through sight...
The way they’re like lone wolves, hunting their prey in solitude...
Their inquisitive boisterous nature...
And just generally look like they’re from another planet, with their huge round eyes and deadly
serrated mandibles. Although, after recently acquiring and observing this colony, I think
these Spider Ants come in at a close second. Much like the bull ants, they’re just so
incredibly unique.
So the winner of the contest is…Darcy Weber.
His favourites, the Trap Jaw Ants. He loves how weird and different they are from other
ants, and how fun they are to watch. I’m with you on that one. The speed at which these
ants can bite is mind blowing. They’re definitely up there with my favourites too. So congratulations
Darcy, you’ve just won one of our ytong nests.
For next video’s giveaway, I’m putting 2 prizes up for grabs, another of our ytong
nests, and also my old camera. An Olympus SZ-14. It’s what I shot all of my early
videos with. So, it's seen its fair share of use, and is a little banged up. The photo
function is a bit buggy, but video works perfectly fine. It has a super macro setting which is
pretty decent. Allowing you to capture footage like this…
I’ve since upgraded to a DSLR
camera, and so, rarely use this one anymore. So I figured, why not give it to someone who
will! So for a chance at winning the ytong nest
simply answer the following, “What have found to be most fascinating about spider ants"?
And for a shot at winning my old camera, just
let me know why you want it, and what you plan on shooting with it.
Post your answers in the comment section below. I’ll pick out 2 separate comments and announce
them as the winners in my next video. As always, thanks for watching this video
and I hope you enjoyed.