As I watched the queen’s first worker ant lovingly hand over the cocoon casing from
which it had emerged the day before, I smiled to see the queen happily take it and proceed
to eat it.
Afterall, this old cocoon skin was valuable protein and nutrients for the queen.
The extra nutrients would surely help her out with egg production, especially since
it had been a whopping 52 days since she’d eaten a proper meal.
But as I watched the worker ant start to fiddle around and go in at one of the cocoons, I
held my breath.
I knew what was about to happen was going to be special.
Today, you are going to watch a new worker ant emerge into the world for the very first
time as an adult, and discover just how the ants’ family members are surprisingly key
to the whole process.
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Enjoy!
So the process starts here.
The whole thing took approximately 35 mins for the ant to completely emerge from the
cocoon, so feel free to just sit back and enjoy!
I think you’ll love all the things you’re about to see.
The worker ant who had emerged from her own cocoon just the day before, gets straight
to work at making the incision into the cocoon, to free her first adult sister.
She uses her sharp mandibles like scissors to tear away at the cocoon skin, which is
made from hardened larval silk.
Though it looks like the queen isn’t doing much, she’ll be helping out later.
It’s been a crazy 52 days raising this first generation of ants to adulthood, and she needs
the rest.
Feel free to watch the entire series, by the way, from the start at Day 1 here.
Since ants don’t have vocal chords, I assume the newly formed ant within the cocoon releases
pheromones which tell outside ants to help cut it loose.
Judging from what I can see through the cocoon skin, the adult ant isn’t moving nor struggling
to get out at all.
It’s completely still, as her older sister works carefully to tear a hole.
It does seem that tearing a hole into the cocoon is not an easy task.
It involves pulling at the hardened silken fibers, which are designed to protect the
pupa inside as it develops into an adult worker ant.
But, she’s determined.
Yesterday, the queen had to handle this job entirely herself.
Suddenly, the worker ant stops to take a breather then moves forward to communicate something
to the queen.
The queen moves forward in response, and AC Family, watch this!
The ant was hungry and needed food, so the queen began to feed her some ‘ant milk’,
produced from her own broken down body tissues, the same stuff on which she’d been raising
that ant and all her sisters this whole time.
Nature gave this queen only enough of this ‘ant milk’ to raise her first generation
of worker ants, and after that, the workers will be forced to venture out into the world
to find food for the colony when the queen’s ant milk runs out.
After the feeding, it was back to work, but this time the queen was helping out.
More tearing of the cocoon fibers, but together they were able to create a decent sized starting
hole.
The queen seemed really proficient at handling and maneuvering the cocoon as they continued
to tear at the skin.
I’ll just timelapse this part a bit, as the worker and queen continue to work at increasing
the size of the hole.
It was at this time that I noticed how many more worker ants were on the way developing
comfortably in their cocoons.
It was amazing to think that this process would happen again and again each time, for
each of the cocoons, and eventually when the colony gets huge, hundreds or even thousands
of times a day as more and more worker ants continue to emerge from their cocoons.
I felt super grateful to be able to witness such a thing, that usually in nature, happens
concealed in darkness within the privacy of the ants’ nests.
Such Ant Big Brother feels, right?
Hole’s getting bigger now.
I watched as the worker took a quick break to clean itself before returning to help the
queen.
Soon the hole was pretty large.
I could see the mandibles of the ant inside.
How cool is that?
Again, it didn’t seem like the ant inside was moving, and I wondered if it was even
conscious at this point, but I would soon be getting my answer.
As the queen and worker ant continued to tear the cocoon open, I began to wonder what it
must be like for that new worker ant.
I wonder what it’s thinking.
Could it be wondering who these two ants are tearing away at its protective casing?
Could it be excited that soon it would be free and born as essentially a new creature
from the helpless larva it was before it spun the cocoon.
Could it be terrified right now?
What do you guys think this ant was thinking?
I could only speculate, but one thing’s for sure, I wasn’t blinking one little bit,
watching these two ants eagerly tearing away at the cocoon.
They laid the cocoon down and continued to tear.
What surprised me was despite the queen being so massive and having a huge head packed with
mandible muscle, it still seemed like cutting through the cocoon was a tough job.
Again, I guess it was a good thing that cocoon silk was so tough to penetrate and tear, to
ensure the safety of the pupae within in case an enemy or predator were to get a hold of
one.
And speaking of the devil, it looks like a tiny fly wants in.
I bet it smells the brood inside and wants to lay its eggs so its maggots could feast
on the helpless brood.
We all know how much flies and maggots love ants!
And soon, yay!
I see a face!
Great work, ladies!
Getting closer.
It was a considerable tear now.
The ants continued to tear and tear, again the ant inside not moving despite there being
a bit of wiggle room.
The queen took a break and so did the worker, but not for too long.
The worker went back to work.
You can’t be lazy on your first day on the job!
But it was kind of cute to see them taking turns.
More tearing, timelapse.
Soon the hole was pretty big, almost ripped halfway down the cocoon.
What a mission!
It was at this point that I began to wonder what their planned course of action was.
Would they cut all the way around the cocoon and pop the top off like a can?
Or would they try to pull the ant out of the hole?
Suddenly, the worker began to grasp pretty aggressively at the ant’s head and antenna.
Ouch!
That looks pretty rough!
They’ll really need to make that hole bigger if they expect the ant to slip out.
The two ants then began to try a very funny swinging motion as they attempted to grab
the cocoon at both ends of the tear, and just pull and swing, pull and swing.
After the rough grabbing of the ant earlier, I was surprised to watch the worker ant proceed
to gently lick and clean the ant inside.
How cute!
But that didn’t last too long.
Soon it was back to tugging, biting, and rough handling.
Oh dear!
I’d be so dizzy if I were that ant inside!
Talk about a stressful first few hours as an adult ant!
The worker took another break as the queen continued to work at the cocoon.
But still my favourite was watching the queen and the worker ant cooperating and working
together.
It should be noted that this queen will probably not be doing this in the future as more and
more workers arrive.
Eventually, the queen’s job will just be to lay eggs and the worker ants will completely
take over all nest duties and jobs of ant society, including this tedious process of
freeing newly developed ants from their cocoons.
So it was truly an honour watching the queen performing this rather ‘working class’
job like this.
And soon it was freedom of the ant’s head anyway.
How cool is that, right guys?
And oh, looks like a tiny larva got stuck, hope they don’t accidentally bite and tear
at it!
Ahhhh!
Oh!
Looks like the queen immediately noticed it was a larva upon biting, and placed it down
in a safe spot, again pretty roughly if I do say so.
Alright, when will they finally remove that ant from there?
I think at this point, it became clear to me that the tactic was to try to pull the
ant out of the now very sizable hole.
The queen began to look for places to pull.
She grasped at the ant’s antennae and also its mandibles, and oh, I do think I see it
slowly slipping out, and oh my God, the leg moved!
The ant wasn’t unconscious!
It was awake and just waiting.
The worker ant continued to tear at the cocoon fibers while the queen used her claws and
mandibles to try to pull the ant out.
This was truly so exciting to watch.
Look at the queen using her legs and mandibles!
How awesome!
It looked like the ant was nearly halfway out and moving its legs here and there.
Come on girls!
You can do it!
More cleaning action happening there with the worker licking the new ant’s face.
I can only imagine what this new ant must be feeling right now!
It was it’s first look into the outside world with newly formed eyes, unobstructed
by a semi-transparent cocoon wall this time.
It must be super confused right now, but it’s almost like this was an ant’s second birth.
The ant was now halfway out, and moving its new legs.
I so badly wanted to go in and help them, but I knew it wasn’t my place.
These ants had all the tools they needed to free this ant and they were getting so close
now.
You might notice the colour difference between the two worker ants.
The new worker is lighter in colour, but as its exoskeleton hardens over time it soon
will also darken.
Another break, as the worker ant tries the garbage bag approach pulling from the top,
which of course doesn’t work, and then what happened next was truly super beautiful.
Watch this!
Both the queen and the worker ant began to gently and lovingly clean the ant.
Ahhh now that’s better.
Imagine entering the world as an adult ant for the first time to your mother and only
adult sister licking you clean… ok, that sounds wrong in a human sense, but in an ant
sense, I find the sight to be quite beautiful and moving.
And then it was back to pulling!
Pull, pull, pull… the ants legs were now beginning to unfurl.
More cleaning.
And finally, the ant was almost completely out with just its hind legs stuck to the cocoon.
Hello, little one!
Welcome to the world!
So cute!
It opened and closed its new mandibles, which it had never used before, as the queen and
worker continued to clean it.
The sight was truly spectacular.
Have a look.
With the way they were licking the ant non-stop I wondered if it was covered in a layer of
substance that actually tasted good to the ants.
I’ll timelapse this cleaning part as it took a considerable amount of time.
I soon began to see the ant move its appendages more and flex its gaster.
It must truly be a different feeling from being a larva.
The ant was even bending at its neck.
It must feel so cool to have all these new body parts!
Body parts which the queen and worker were so very meticulous at cleaning!
Come on almost free!
Just a little bit more!
And out!
Ahhhh so satisfying!
The worker disposed of the cocoon casing.
It seemed the ant had a little bit of sticky cocoon gunk stuck to its legs, but the Queen
was on it.
It was just so cool to see the ant now fully moving and flailing its legs and antennae.
The queen managed to remove the gunk off the ant and proceeded to eat the stuff for nourishment,
as the newly emerged worker ant lay in place for a bit, right next to a fat larva, which
it used to be not too long ago.
Watch this, guys!
This is hilarious!
Oops the queen dropped the gunk, and it stuck to the worker’s leg.
She searched around a bit.
Where did it go?
The queen kept coming close to it but the worker kept unknowingly pulling the gunk away
from the queen, as she eagerly searched for that valuable gunk.
The worker picked it up and put it a safe distance away.
“Will you guys forget the gunk already and help me out?!”, I imagined this new worker
said as it tried to stand up on its new legs.
“Here, let me clean you, sis!”
“And I, too, my sweet daughter!” said the queen.
This was one happy new ant, AC Family!
But soon the queen got distracted.
“Oh, there’s the gunk!
I’ve been looking everywhere for it!”
Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom!
For the next few minutes the ant just laid there, as the blood began to pump through
her new body parts.
The queen also periodically went in to clean.
I began to wonder if this licking also acted as a sort of massage to help encourage the
ant’s blood and inner fluids to circulate through those legs and antennae.
Two hours later, the new ant was darker in colour and lay still to rest as it continued
to harden.
It had been through a crazy transition, and needed all the rest it could get before the
lifetime of colony ant work it had ahead.
AC Family, you’ll love what I saw in the test tube the next day.
Peeking into the test tube, I was pleasantly surprised to not only see that the new ant
had completely hardened and was fully mobile, but that the night before, a third ant had
emerged from its cocoon, meaning that entire process of breaking an ant free from its cocoon
happened all again a few hours later with a second cocoon!
Amazing!
It was awesome to witness what is technically a very common thing in every day ant life,
but something we humans couldn’t possibly see if we weren’t ant keeping.
It’s truly why I love ant keeping so much.
It’s like having a God’s eye view of the secret world at the microlevel.
I truly hope you guys enjoyed today’s video, as well.
The queen of this ant colony is known on this channel as Queen #1, of the 8 queen carpenter
ants I’m currently keeping, and as you can see, each of the other queens are also welcoming
their first worker ants, which is super exciting!
Next week, I have something truly epic planned for these ant colonies.
They’ll be ready to receive their very first real meal, and the ants will no longer have
to rely on their queen’s self-made body-tissue soup, stores of which will probably be running
dry soon.
I couldn’t wait to watch these ant colonies and their queens finally get to eat proper
meals, but you’ll have to tune in next week, for all of that.
Thank you for watching and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!