Oh no!
I cannot believe it!
If you read the title, you know why I am freaking out, and it's true.
Something is killing our ant colony.
They're not eating, they're not active, and they are all around unwilling to show themselves,
and I have no idea why.
Please subscribe to my channel, and hit the bell icon, too.
Welcome to the AC Family.
Enjoy.
So how did this all start?
If you're new to the channel, let's catch you up to speed.
Last week, we moved the Titans, our awesome polymorphic colony of Asian Marauder Ants
into this newly designed terrarium.
They won this new space due to a vote held on our Twitter page, after the ant colony,
our Jawbreakers, a young trap-jaw ant colony that was original supposed to inherit this
terrarium was massacred by some wild black crazy ants.
So last week these ants were moved in to these rich, untouched lands, and we resolved to
wait to allow the ants to move in on their own time.
Feel free to watch that video in the icard here, after watching this video.
On the night of their arrival, we saw workers dancing in excitement over their new territory.
It gave us hope that the future of the Titans was looking fruitful and bright.
Fast forward 5 days later, and the colony surprisingly has still not moved out of their
original towers.
There are less workers seen foraging, and they don't leave the vicinity to wander beyond
the towers.
In fact, the only new land they would travel upon within this terrarium is the little area
of soil and sphagnum moss between the two towers.
I couldn't even see any ants coming in or out of the 2nd tower.
I have no idea where they have disappeared to.
The terrarium itself has already begun to take shape and flourish.
The air plants, have begun to flower with blooms opening to greet the sky.
To see such beautifully thriving plantlife was such a contrast to the seemingly desolate
ant space.
All ants that were seen entered and exited from a tiny ant hole in the first tower here
and another here in the third middle tower.
As soon as I sensed something was wrong, I offered the colony some food, which actually
is our AC custom every time an ant colony moves into a new home.
At first, the workers seemed enlivened at the presence of the food, but a few minutes
later, the ants seemed to ignore it.
It was peculiar, because these ants love their insects.
Remember what happened when we first gave them a cockroach?
I tried to offer a drop of honey.
Perhaps the colony was lacking carbohydrates and just needed an energy boost.
But that, too was no use.
They ignored it and didn't even touch the drop of sweet goods.
It was so disheartening to see the Titans not doing well.
What could possibly be going wrong?
Let's take a look at the possibilities.
This ant species known as Carebara diversa, is actually notoriously known by ant keepers
as an extremely difficult species of ant to keep in captivity.
Even the most advanced and experienced ant keepers have been unable to keep them alive
in a captive setting.
I myself have tried to rear colonies of this species from just a queen, and all 4 attempts
ended in failure with the queen and all of her brood ultimately dying out.
The species was written about in a best-selling book 'Adventures Among Ants' by famous entomologist
and friend of mine Mark Moffett, also known as Doctor Bugs, as he recounts the complexity
of the Asian Marauder ant lifestyle in the wild.
A lot is still left to be discovered about the lives of this ant species, but Mark Moffett
pointed out something quite interesting about Marauder Ants and captivity, in a past interview
with us on this channel.
Check out what he said:
I, in fact, love to keep pets, but uh I found that I'm really a field guy.
I find, uh, you know even the ant I studied for my thesis the Marauder Ant you could put
it in captivity and all its behaviour would fall apart, so I don't trust, uh, captivity
that much.
Mark went on to say that because the wild setting is so different from the captive setting,
he prefers to take his research and photos of Marauder ants in the wild.
Fact is, not all ants adapt well to captivity, and our Titans are indeed classified as such
ants, very sensitive and hard to keep in captivity.
In a previous video, we've seen these ants in action in the wild, during a recent visit
to a city called Laguna here in the Philippines where they can be found.
They are actually very lively ants, that eat a lot, create huge foraging trails, and have
awesome supermajors, the extra large workers with massive heads.
Compare the vigor of this wild colony with our Titans here.
You will notice the great contrast.
What could we possibly be missing among our captive provisions that these ants get in
the wild that cause them to thrive?
A friend of mine, who sold the Titans to me through the GAN Project told me that he found
the ants had certain chambers in their nest with dried pieces of compost and leaf litter
that was clearly collected from the vicinity.
It sounds odd, but perhaps it suggested that the ants were using the compost somehow, perhaps
to culture fungus or colonies of decomposer creatures to eat perhaps?
These ants are not known to do this and it would be new information if that were the
case.
The GAN Farmer also suspected that the ants were collecting cow dung.
This was interesting because one of the constituents of the soils I added to this terrarium, did
in fact contain a small percentage of cow manure, but I didn't see evidence of the ants
eagerly moving in to the terrarium at all.
Scientists still don't know a whole lot about these ants, and neither do us ant keepers,
so it is no surprise that they aren't doing so well despite this lush territory we're
providing them.
There seems to be some essential element we are missing, that we might be failing to provide
the ants here, or might actually be providing that may in fact be killing them!
I figured it might possibly be the water, so I made sure to only give the ants purified
water.
I also was aware that the ants require a lot of humidity, so I made sure their towers when
they were living in just the towers, as well as this new terrarium were humid and moist
all the time.
Perhaps the terrarium was too open and airy a space for them?
But how then would they deal with open spaces in the wild?
So many questions, so little answers, and all I could do was watch.
Peeking into the terrarium one day I was delighted to see a supermajor had finally decided to
wander out of one of the towers.
I watched as it moved from the first tower and traveled towards the middle tower.
Perhaps it was a sign that the colony was deciding to move into the middle tower.
I was excited at the prospect that we would soon see the queen and her cohort at least
moving somewhere and showing signs of being alive!
So I planted myself and prepared to watch the site for hours.
But to my surprise, no royal queen nor cohort came.
The supermajor had planted itself in one spot seemingly quite lethargic.
It was so odd to see.
It set up shop in an empty piece of land between the two towers, and over the next 2 hours,
I watched as the supermajor worker ant gave up it's life to the Universe.
I had never before watched an ant die, but the whole time, my heart was in my throat.
It was sad, and really hurt to watch.
The lifeless supermajor lay motionless in the soil.
Other workers came by but did not pay attention to her nor attempt to move her.
This is how I knew something was seriously wrong because in a healthy colony, workers
would ordinarily collect disceased ants and deposit them into a colony graveyard.
What was going on?!
Something was indeed off here and it needed to be dealt with immediately.
So, AC Family, we must act quickly.
I need your help in deciding our next step.
There are a few options here, so please take the time to consider them.
We could 1) Pack up the towers, remove them from the terrarium immediately, and reconnect
them back the way they used to be and hope the Titans recover.
We could then proceed to give this terrarium to another ant colony.
2) We could try emptying the contents of the towers ever so carefully so the colony is
forced to move out and into this massive terrarium, or 3) We could simply continue to leave them
and allow them to move out on their own and hope they survive.
After all, the colony could have moved out without us knowing, perhaps while we weren't
watching.
I do, on the other hand, highly doubt this is the case because I believe we would have
see them foraging other parts of the terrarium, which we haven't, or 4) we could put the Titans'
well-being first before our desire to keep them, and simply release the Titans back into
the wild from where they came.
If we choose this route, we would forfeit the opportunity to learn about the species,
for the preservation of their lives.
Perhaps we simply can't know enough about them at this point in time, to properly care
for them in captivity long term, and therefore cannot possibly study them properly.
So, please take the time to leave your VOTE by clicking this icard poll here and let me
know what you think our next move should be.
Remember that your vote will determine the ultimate fate of the Titans so take your time
and choose wisely, AC Family.
I still believe we have the power to save the Titans.
What do you think we should do?
Do any of you have any suggestions regarding their care that we might have overlooked?
Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
The Titans must live on!
We've saved other colonies on this channel before, through our collective inputs, by
way of the unified collective mind of the AC Family, and like ants, we've solved these
problems triumphantly.
Let us go forth and help these ants that need us in this tough time.
Long live the Titans!
Now the Universe truly works in mysterious ways.
When it takes life, in almost perfect timing, it brings life, in perfect measure.
For in my ant room, within one of the drawers, lays a great surprise that happened to cross
paths with me, a few days ago, and I think the AC Family will truly love it, and I can't
wait to show you, guys... next week!
IT'S ANT LOVE FOREVER.
Haha!
Alright, AC Family tune in next week for this great surprise and turn of events, and let's
hope the Titans make it through this trying period.
Make sure to leave your comments and votes before this video ends!
AC Inner Colony, I've left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would just like to watch
the Titans in their new terrarium.
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week we asked:
Name one fact mentioned in our last video about air plants.
Congratulations to Gijs van Hulten who correctly answered:
Air plants aquire all the water they need from the humidity
in the air around them.
Congratulations Gijs van Hulten, you just won a free ebook handbook from our shop!
And in this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What is the name of Mark Moffett's best-selling book?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free test tube portal
from our shop!
Perfect for offering a mini outworld for your starting ant colonies this year!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every saturday at 8AM EST.
Don't forget to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video so we can keep making
you cool ant videos like this.
It's ant love forever!