But as I began to drift off to sleep that night, dreaming about what other cool ants
and creatures I’d stumble upon next, the rainforest actually gave me its second welcome
gift, and one I’d never forget.
It was crawling on my hand, and I just thought it was one of the male ants, but to my surprise,
it wasn’t.
Ahhhhhhh!
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AC Family, behold the beast I caught, scuttling across the floor shortly after I was bitten.
Check out the size of her!
This here was the absolute biggest spider, spider I’ve ever seen in real life!
Now I say “spider, spider” because this isn’t by definition a tarantula, so to speak,
but rather a huntsman spider which I’ll talk more about in a bit, but it was certainly
as big as many of my pet tarantulas I had back at home.
But there’s something about this spider which I’ll be revealing to you shortly.
Not all is as it seems, AC Family.
I’ll also attempt to feed this beast later in the video, so do stay tuned for all of
that coming up.
Now, I know a lot of you out there are arachnophobic, so I won’t be showing too much footage of
this spider moving around and stuff, but I will tell you this spider is lightning fast!
My heart was racing at a million miles a second trying to catch her, and cup her into this
container, a 10 minute process which I wasn’t able to film because I would have had to set
up my camera and it would have truly been hard to multitask such a thing.
I’ll just leave it to your imagination, guys, but just know it took full hyper focused
effort to chase it around my room and finally contain it.
I still am shocked I managed to pull it off.
Speaking of which, some of you may be wondering, AntsCanada, what was a spider of this size
doing in your room?
Well, if you saw last week’s video, I’m currently residing in the rainforest in a
cottage for the next few months, and needless to say, it’s a totally different and exotic
world out here.
In my first week, a full out nuptial flight happened in my room and I was able to collect
14 queen ants and place them in test tubes for rearing ant colonies for rearing ant colonies
from them, hopefully, fingers crossed.
And then the next night, I got bit before going to bed and here we are with this huntsman.
Her face looked just crazy!
Look at all those eyes and her fangs.
Now there are actually more than a thousand species of huntsman spiders in the world,
all belonging to the family Sparassidae.
They eat insects, other spiders, lizards, and other small invertebrates.
I know all you Australian AC Family members might be familiar with these spiders.
They’re quick and get their name from their amazing hunting prowess.
Which brings me now to feeding time!
Let’s try feeding her, AC Family, shall we?
Now with ants I usually pre-kill insect prey because I don’t like seeing prey insects
suffer over an extended period of time, but with arachnids they need live prey because
their movement allows the spider to perceive the prey as food.
And so, I grabbed the closest and largest insect I could find in my room.
A stray queen ant that was a day late in flying.
Sorry, queenie.
You’re spider food tonight.
The spider could feel the queen ant moving around her container.
The queen stopped to clean herself.
The huntsman spider sat patiently below.
I was so ready to see this beast eat!
My heart raced as I waited, and waited, and waited...
But then, in a sort of anti-climax, the queen ant did not move from her spot for the next
several hours!
Neither did the spider.
Booo!
I want my money back!
A bunch of straggler male ants began to swarm the container at one point in the night, probably
attracted to my cellphone light or the pheromones from the queen alate, so I decided the queen
wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon and perhaps the spider wasn’t interested in
the ant anyway.
I went to sleep and in the morning, I released the uneaten queen ant.
Now, as mentioned earlier there was something peculiar about this whole situation regarding
the spider, and AC Family let me know if you agree with me.
Listen to this.
So the night before, when I was bitten in bed, I jumped up in utter agony and switched
on the lights.
My hand was burning with a sharp metallic pain that shot throughout my entire hand.
The point of the bite was right here!
You could see a little white spot where I felt the pain.
But AC Family, do you see something wrong with this situation?
Let me know if you agree.
If it was indeed the huntsman that bit me, I imagined there would be two fang marks or
wounds on my palm.
I don’t think the spider’s fangs were small enough that it would have pierced the
skin, injected the venom, then retracted without creating some kind of wound on my palm.
It was definitely fishy, right guys?
You guys will also see in a sec, another reason I definitely felt this spider wasn’t the
biting culprit we were looking for, after all.
Now, I know what some of you may be thinking again: AntsCanada, let’s keep her and build
her a terrarium, but I hate to disappoint you, guys.
After thinking about it for a while, I decided to just release her outside.
The reason for this is because she’s a wandering spider that moves and travels great distances
hunting for food, and I didn’t think keeping her in an aquarium at my cottage would be
the best quality of life for her, unless it was a super massive tall aquarium, which definitely
wouldn’t fit in my cottage.
It might fit in the future Ant House, but not where I am now.
Perhaps I’ll try to find another like her before I move.
Before releasing her, I managed to feed her a forest roach which she relished lovingly.
Now, going back to what bit me the night before!
A huge ant caught my eye scuttling across the floor that morning, and AC Family have
a look at this beast!
Equally as menacing as the huntsman, this huge and crazy-looking ant is a queen trap-jaw
ant!
She was massive!
Have a look at those crazy trap-jaws.
She creeped closer and closer to inspect the lens of my camera as I watched in utter amazement.
AC Family, it seems last night was the nuptial flight for this massive species of trap-jaw
ant, and it made so much sense!
My bite from the night before, which left no double fang wound, just had to be from
a trap-jaw queen ant!
If you’re new to ants, these trap-jaw ants are truly exceptional in the ant world.
Their called trap-jaw ants because like huge bear traps, the ants have trigger hairs which
when touched instantly set off the jaws to snap shut.
Their jaws which open 180 degrees can close with tremendous speed, one of the fast-moving
appendages known in the animal kingdom, and if this queen were the size of a human, a
jaw crushing force equivalent to dropping 12 SUVs would be applied to whatever would
be unfortunate enough to be within range of these jaws.
Needless to say, creatures usually don’t survive a bite from a trap-jaw ant, and I
believe that to be the kind of power I felt when I was bitten!
I had to have been bitten or possibly stung, because they also do have stingers, by one
of these trap-jaw queen ants in my bed.
AC Family, what do you guys think?
Man, it hurt SO BAD!
It felt like my hand practically flung off my arm!
So I actually ended up catching two trap-jaw ant queens wandering my room that morning,
and one of them had already shed her wings, and two days later, the wingless queen had
actually begun egg-laying!
This was of course awesome, because I wouldn’t mind having a trap-jaw ant colony again.
I’ve owned trap-jaw ants in the past, if you recall the Jawbreakers, but this massive
species will surely be interesting and different!
I suspect this winged trap-jaw queen might not have been mated, as she still hasn’t
laid any eggs to this day, but I’ll be sure to keep a close watch on both of these queens
and feed them in their test tubes, as they’re semi-claustral ants that need to feed and
hunt during the colony founding process.
But AC Family, now I ask you: What should we name this queen if she does turn out to
be successful at founding a colony?
Let me know in the comments section and your AC Senate and I will choose our TOP 5 favourites
for us to vote on in a future video.
Overall, living here in the rainforest for two weeks now has been quite a trip, to say
the least.
The biodiverse wildlife seems to be so dense, that creatures and beasts are spilling into
my own living space from the outside.
I know the idea might make some of you feel queasy, so just enjoy this experience with
me through the safety of your screens.
I truly appreciate you guys taking the time to follow along with me on this continuing
adventure and experience out in this wilderness, the rainforest with all it’s diverse lifeforms,
as I am sure that this is just the beginning of all the amazing creatures and ants we will
run into over the next few months that I’ll be staying here.
Lots of exciting things are definitely ahead, AC Family, so thank you again for watching
and supporting the ants!
Now I do have an update on the 14 huge queen carpenter ants that I caught from last week’s
episode.
If you recall, we weren’t sure if any of them had mated, and how many would successfully
proceed to the next stage of colony founding, seeing as not all queens in nature actually
make it, to successfully founding a full-sized healthy colony.
Only one queen had begun laying eggs at the time.
But AC Family, it’s been over a week of the queens being left undisturbed in the dark,
and I think you guys will love the great news and update I have to share!
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?
So what do you think?
Do you think I was bitten by the huntsman, the trap-jaw, or possibly something else?
Also, as mentioned, I have exciting updates on the 14 queen ants I caught from last week’s
episode.
Don’t miss this continuing real life adventure and story, living in the tropical rainforest,
by smashing that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified
at every upload.
Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me, guys.
Thank you!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to watch extended
play footage of our new trap-jaw ant queens.
Go check them out!
And guys, did you know that it’s anting season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you
don’t even need to leave your home to start an ant colony?!
You can catch pregnant queen ants from the safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open
window starting this month!
Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to
you in a special package from our ant-loving facility in the USA, so you can get the most
out of your ant keeping experience.
We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!
We also have a helpful forum and ant colony trading marketplace on the site.
Visit AntsCanada.com today.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What do you think bit my hand, while in my bed?
Congratulations to Elaine Leo who answered:
A trap-jaw ant!
Congratulations Elaine, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
How many species of huntsman spiders are there in the world?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free Ultimate Ant
Keeping Handbook from our shop!
Hope you could 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!