Oh no!
AC Family, we have a serious crisis on our hands.
Look at how many ants are filling this massive tank, the Hacienda Del Dorado, the home to
our active colony of yellow crazy ants.
This is the Golden Empire, our fastest growing ant colony on this channel.
In fact this 8 queen supercolony of yellow crazy ants is so fast growing, they are set
to outgrow this huge vivarium soon if they continue on this path of rapid, unchecked
population growth!
Of course on this channel, mass execution & culling of ant populations is definitely
not our style!
So I turned to you guys, the AC Family, and on our Twitter page, I asked you, if you felt
it would be ethically, ok to introduce carnivorous plants into the Hacienda Del Dorado as a natural
form of population control, and to my surprise, by 65% margin, you guys chose the ant-eating
plants.
AC Family, you won't want to miss these mind-blowing scenes of epic ant vs plant action, and guys,
you won't believe the incredible plot twist, so keep on watching until the end.
In a world where not animals are on top of the food chain, but suddenly plants are in
the Hacienda Del Dorado, I welcome you to another episode of the AntCanada Ant Channel.
Please subscribe to my videos and hit the bell icon.
Welcome to the AC Family.
Enjoy!
So here's how this all went down.
Lately, the sheer numbers of ants that come to the surface at every feeding has been staggering.
Watch what happens whenever I lay down a tray of honey, or some feeder insects.
At first, a few members, and then a few minutes later more, and soon much more, and then droves
more!
It isn't long before a blanket of ants appear on the surface clamoring for the food, like
hungry savages devouring whatever I place into their territory.
There's no denying that the Golden Empire had definitely exploded in population.
Perhaps it is due to the extra hot weather we've been getting here in the Philippines,
as it has currently been summer for a few months now.
This is the Golden Empire's first summer in fact, and that coupled with the fact that
the colony has 8 egg-laying queens, and has been receiving a full supply of insects and
honey daily, it is no wonder the Golden Empire is quickly filling up the Hacienda Del Dorado.
The Hacienda Del Dorado itself, so far has been good at self-sustaining.
The organisms within the terrarium seem to establish a nice balance and working relationship.
Springtails which you guys officially named the Spring Cleaners by the way, do a great
job at taking care of garbage, we have millipedes from a previous video eating up decaying plant
matter, but nothing existed in our little community of creatures to keep our ant population
in check.
And now, I have been noticing more and more ants testing the security baby powder barriers
for weaknesses, and based on past experience we all know what that means.
They may be planning an escape.
AC Family, we have a serious crisis on our hands.
The Golden Empire's population absolutely needed to be controlled and immediately.
Now adding a predatory insect or animal into the Hacienda Del Dorado to eat the ants was
definitely not an option.
I considered possibly a toad or a gecko, but no, such animals would undoubtedly end up
being devoured by the ants.
Although it is true that the ants of our Golden Empire here are harmless to humans and seemingly
non-aggressive, they are actually pretty savage.
Their acid sprays can be lethal to other animals.
This week, my pet bird managed to get into the Hacienda Del Dorado, and the ants practically
blinded her for a good two days.
You can see what happened on a vlog on my other channel.
There have been many cases of dogs & other animals here in the Philippines with severe
eye injuries and even swollen tracheae due to the formic acid sprays of ants like these.
I highly doubt an ant lion would even be able to survive the Golden Empire.
It would drown in this swarm and fall prey to these ants.
So you see, unless we're talking about a full-out ant eater, placing any kind of predatory animal
in here would not work at controlling population size.
The predator would simply not survive.
But what if our predators were not animals inserted into the Hacienda Del Dorado, but
instead were plants.
AC Family, meet Nepenthes, the notorious, carnivorous pitcher plants.
Let's take a closer look, shall we?
Here we have two hybrid plant monsters.
These ominous plant beasts belong to the genus Nepenthes.
To the left, we have a stout cross breed product of the species Nepenthes mirabilis, thorelli,
and campanulata, all native to Southeast Asia.
And to the right, a more slender hybrid of Nepenthes ventricosa and alata, both native
to the Philippines.
These plants are gorgeous, but don't be fooled by their beauty.
Make no mistake.
These plants are lethal to insects.
Let's go over how these pitcher plants work.
At the end of several of the leaves exist tendrils from which pitcher-shaped plant parts
hang.
Located at every pitcher's peristome, the name for those glossy-looking lips of the
pitcher, are honey-glands, which produce a liquid secretion that act as the pitcher's
bait.
This secretion is sweet, perfect for luring in a potential unsuspecting ant.
In fact, these particular species of pitcher plants specialize in feeding on ants above
all insects.
So when an ant or other insect comes to drink from the sweet secretion, the peristome's
slippery surface causes the ants to fall in, and inward pointing microscopic hairs keep
the ants from being able to climb out.
At the bottom of every pitcher waiting for the falling ants lays a liquid called phytotelmata
which drowns the ant and digests it.
A shielding flap covers every pitcher keeping debris and excess water from falling into
the pitcher which could potentially render the pitchers ineffective.
Let's take a peek into this pitcher which is midway wilted and doesn't have it's covering
flap.
You can see the liquid phytotelmata inside, and wait a sec, there's a tiny spider living
in there.
Haha!
I assume it's mooching off the pitcher of any extra small insects that might fall inside.
How funny!
It seems some creatures are able to hack the pitcher plants' evolutionary devices.
Now the reason I chose to go with pitcher plants and not something like venus fly traps
is because first, these pitcher plants can consume more ants than a venus fly trap plant
can.
Venus fly traps can only capture as many ants as they have traps, which is usually a small
number compared to the number of ants we need eaten in this case.
These pitcher plants on the other hand can consume are larger amount of ants, pretty
much until the pitchers are full, and as each pitcher eventually dies and rots away, new
pitchers grow with every new leaf.
Pitcher plants seemed like the better option for what we needed.
Also, I was surprised to find that pitcher plants happen to be hardier than venus fly
traps.
As a child I owned a venus fly trap on 2 occasions and both times they died.
Venus fly traps are notoriously delicate plants, while these pitcher plants are a bit more
tolerant of various conditions.
The only instruction I had regarding their care was to give them only distilled water
and provide them with good lighting.
I was told, they grow well in hummus, coconut husk, and peat moss which was perfect because
those media were exactly what I used for the Hacienda Del Dorado.
Pitcher plants like most carnivorous plants evolved their feeding behaviours in order
to acquire needed nutrients, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus.
In their natural habitats, pitcher plants and many other carnivorous plants grow in
soils that are too poor in minerals and/or too acidic for most plants to survive.
So rather than relying on photosynthetic glucose to survive like most plants, pitcher plants
supplement available nutrients and minerals, which plants normally obtain through their
roots, with the constituents of their insect prey.
The idea of using these pitcher plants to control our ant population still made me nervous,
however, as I have never before done this nor ever attempted to use a predatory factor
to control my captive ant colony populations.
Usually, most ant keepers either lower the temperature at which the colony is at and/or
limit the food provided to slow down egg production, but I couldn't lower the temperature as I
feared it would have had a negative effect on the Fire Nation which are killed by lower
temperatures, and limiting the food at this point would have lead to mass deaths within
the Golden Empire.
These pitcher plants seemed like the best and most humane option.
So here we go.
My plan was to plant the two pitcher plants here and here.
They needed to be in a good location with ample lighting, and every morning natural
sun hits these spots of the Hacienda Del Dorado.
I wanted to keep the pitcher plants partially in their pots just in case I wanted to remove
them for any reason and also to help retain more water.
So, I simply cut the upper part of their thin pots to better hide the pots after planting.
One thing I was told that I found rather peculiar, was that the ants may, quite ironically, end
up taking care of the pitcher plant, because some of the sweet secretion produced by the
pitcher plants' honey glands actually does provide ants with food as some ants are able
to get away safely without falling into the pitchers.
So, I am extremely interested to see what relationship the ants ultimately establish
with these pitcher plants.
It might end up being a partial predator-prey and partial mutualistic symbiotic relationship.
AC Family, let's find out.
I've covered my arms in baby powder to keep the ants from climbing all over me and put
on some gloves.
Wish me luck!
1 - 2 - 3.
I began to dig a hole for the first pitcher plant.
In the soil, I also found groups of brood which I carefully placed aside for the ants
to carry away somewhere else.
Hole excavated.
And now placing the first pitcher plant into the Hacienda Del Dorado.
Alright, and now for the second pitcher plant.
This corner was a bit easier as I only needed to relocate a large rock and place the pitcher
plant in its spot.
Done.
Both pitcher plants were now inside the Hacienda Del Dorado.
Let's watch.
I held my breath!
Ants immediately were drinking from the sweet, slimy peristome.
As expected, in their eagerness to drink the delicious secretions, ants one by one and
rather quietly began to slip into the pitcher.
It seemed the peristome was quite slippery as ants tried their best to gain footing as
they navigated the outside of the pitcher, only to eventually fall in.
Some ants however, were lucky and managed to leave the pitcher after having their drink.
I looked to the other pitcher plant.
This too was popular with the ants.
It seemed this pitcher worked a little differently.
It looked like many ants fed from the peristome, but were also lured into the pitcher.
Ants entered the pitcher freely, and some were even able to crawl back out.
From the looks of things, though, more ants entered than were able to leave.
It wasn't long before the pitcher plants gobbled up many ants, and you could see them inside
their bellies!
See them?
It looked as though the ants were still alive in the pitchers but could only climb to a
certain point before slipping back in.
Peeking in from the top, you could see the ants, alive within the pitcher plants.
I suspect that the ants would eventually simply tire out and die at the bottom of the pitcher
and then be digested.
Watching the ants alive inside the pitcher made my heart weep.
This was the first time I've ever done anything like this and honestly, though I knew this
was something that needed to be done, a part of me felt so bad for doing this.
Watching the ants trying their best to get out was difficult and heart-wrenching.
AC Family, I know you guys feel it, too.
But then, suddenly I noticed something peculiar.
Checking one of the other pitchers I saw that ants were drinking from the peristome but
strangely were able to both enter and exit the pitcher freely.
I looked to the third pitcher on this pitcher plant and shockingly, the same.
Ants were not being trapped inside these pitchers.
It seemed as though pitchers were only in capture-mode for a limited time.
I looked at the other pitcher plant and noticed the same thing.
Ants could quite easily enter and exit the other pitchers.
It seemed the youngest and oldest pitchers were rendered safe for the ants, while only
one pitcher on each plant was in their lethal prime.
How interesting...
Furthermore, all pitchers both lethal and non-lethal, both young and old seemed to be
providing the ants with the secretions.
Even immature, budding pitchers seemed to be providing the ants with sweet goods!
Woah!
Suddenly, I realized that this was all part of the pitcher plants' completely ingenious
design!
You see each pitcher plant was only consuming a small portion of the ants that visited it,
while allowing most of the ants to leave unharmed and with bellies full.
This meant that these surviving ants could return to the colony and let the rest of the
colony members know about the pitcher plants' sweet offerings, so the ants would eventually
learn that the pitcher plant was a reliable and constant source of food.
It ensured ants continually visited the pitcher plants, protect it from potential herbivorous
which might come along and eat the pitcher plants, and aerate the soils in which the
pitcher plants grow.
The relationship between the ants and the pitcher plant was indeed mutualistic, and
sure if you saw ants as individuals then yes, the relationship was partially predatorial,
but if you saw an ant colony as a super organism, as a single animal, the relationship was completely
mutualistic because in sacrificing just a few members of the colony, it ensured the
plant survived to give the ants a constant supply of sugar, which in turn meant the ant
colony would be nourised.
The ants would also end up caring for the pitcher plant via protection and soil aeration.
Wow!
I totally expected the pitcher plants to be ravenous beasts, consuming huge amounts of
ants, but instead, it turned out the plants only took what seemed to be just enough, perhaps
the right amount to get enough nutrients it needed for its size, while still allowing
the majority of ants to leave as their friends.
I was mind-blown by this, and it was another display of nature in its oh so familiar process
of taking just enough according to what it needs and giving back to the other living
things it depends on.
It was beautiful, actually and pretty inspiring.
It made me wish we humans could one day find our similar balance, and realize that the
other living things we share the planet with, should be given back to and cared for so that
they can stick around, because after all, in the end, we need them to survive.
Thanks so much for watching another episode of the AntsCanada ant channel.
This is AntsCanada sign out.
It's ant love forever.
Alright, AC Family was that a plot twist or what?
Now, I don't know if these pitcher plants will be an effective solution to the Golden
Empire's population control or if they'll even survive the harsh and untamed Hacienda
Del Dorado lands, but if the plants eat enough ants to get amply nourished enough to grow
bigger, while also feeding the ants so that the colony thrives, it will grow more pitchers
which will in turn eliminate more ants.
We will see how the proportions work out over time, and I will surely update you on these
pitcher plants and the ant population as time goes on.
AC Inner Colony, I've left a hidden cookie for you here if you just would like to check
out some uncut and unedited footage of one of the pitcher plants consuming ants over
a period of several minutes.
It's truly a marvel how these pitcher plants are designed at trapping the ants effectively.
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week we asked:
What is your favourite reason why ants are the best pets,
either mentioned in our last video or your own?
Congratulations to TheFatRat, who answered:
Ants are great pets because they teach responsibility and dedication.
Congratulations TheFatRat you just won a FREE Omni Nest Small formicarium from our shop.
For this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What is the technical name given to the lip of the pitcher
on which insects can find the sweet secretions?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free AC test tube portal
from our shop!
Perfect for offering a mini outworld especially for those of you with new ant colonies right
now!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload a new ant video every Saturday at 8AM
EST.
If you enjoyed this video, it would truly help us out if you LIKED, COMMENT, and SHARED.
Thanks, guys!
It's ant love forever!