It’s feeding time for the Phoenix Empire, and it’s been awhile since we’ve seen our favourite
fire ant colony feast on a fat juicy roach, and so today, we’re going to do just that. Prepare
for a little gore today though, guys. Nature is ruthless! Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel, and hit the BELL ICON. Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy!
In the great kingdom of floating mountains, known as the Ember Islands,
with its majestic, towering mountains of rock suspended in the skies, lives the
ever-powerful Phoenix Empire, our massive colony of fire ants. In a few short weeks from now,
this colony will officially be hitting 1 yr of age. It’s unreal to think that at the start of
the year, we started off with just a queen ant in a test tube with eggs, and now here we were,
standing before a vast ant kingdom about to be fed their sacrificial roach of the day.
Stay tuned until the end to watch their shocking feeding process.
So, before feeding, I try to look for a suitable location to place their food.
I try not to place their meals on the lush green areas of moss, as I don’t want this
moss to die or mold. It’s so pretty, wouldn’t you say? They look like rolling fields of green.
These roach exoskeletons mark the sites I’ve placed past meals. The ants are busy trying to
either relocate these leftovers or bury them for the springtails to finish off. The ants pile all
the exoskeletons together and bury everything nicely so nature can biologically take care of
it. Other smaller bits of garbage are dumped into the waters and eaten by the aquatic beasts below.
You might notice this roach’s leg is moving. This was yesterday’s meal. The roach has long
been dead. The reason its leg is moving is because the ants are chewing on some tissue inside that’s
causing the leg to mechanically move. Kinda like when you hollow out a crab leg and pull on a part
that makes the leg curl. Cool right? Don’t worry, you’ll see lots of roach legs moving in a bit.
Now, I try to wait for the fog to cease when I feed the ants,
just so things don’t get too sticky for them while they’re feasting. I also try to see what
areas have very little activity so I don’t just drop a huge roach carcass in the middle of one
of their trails to and from the various holes in the rock they’ve burrowed into.
But the Phoenix Empire is hungry, and they’re already been scouting
high and low for their next chunk of protein.
And so AC Family, it’s time for us to visit my meat breeding facility!
Welcome to the AnstCanada Meat Farm, breeding facility and home to the feeder insects I give
my ants and other insectivorous pets. I have two massive colonies of roaches living here,
Dubia roaches, and the larger Madagascar Hissing roaches. However, by pure accident,
I’ve also managed to breed superworms here. See this big black beetle crawling around?
I stuck a couple darkling beetles from an old superworm bin inside this roach farm and low
and behold, check out what it looks like at ground level, guys. This may gross you out!
The ground is full of my personal leftover organics
which provides amazing food for the superworms, darkling beetles, roaches,
and even a colony of ants which I’ve talked about in a previous video. The ants kinda moved in
and I don’t mind them living them living there. I’m actually unsure now if there are more roaches,
ants, or superworms/darkling beetles in this setup!
All of these insects are fattening up nicely, and not to mention,
it’s a great way to make use of my leftovers or rotting fruits and veggies in my fridge.
It doesn’t really smell, but this setup does produce a lot of mold,
so I have to wear a mask every time I go into this seething world of ant livestock.
OK now let’s fast forward, to the part after I’ve picked out a roach
and cut it in half. Not my favourite thing to show on cam, but hey.
Green roach guts! Looks like this roach had its fill of okra!
Ants within the immediate area begin releasing the ‘I Found Food’ pheromone signalling other
ants to emerge from the nest for back up! They’ll be needing lots of ants to process this carcass.
Now the first thing you may notice is that the ants don’t just rush in
and dive in with their mouths. Instead, they inspect the carcass. They smell it,
see if it struggles. This will help the colony decide what their next plan of action will be.
One ant is actually stuck in the guts. You see insect blood clots quickly and it’s easy for
ants to get stuck like this, another reason the ants aren’t just jumping in yet. And suddenly,
the roach began to flail it’s legs.
This movement causes the ants to erupt into a bit of a frenzy. They’re releasing an alarm pheromone.
Now they all are aware that this roach is mobile and a sticky-gooey hazzard!
The roach flails its arms and does its best to bite at any ants that attach their
mandibles to its front legs. Roaches are still capable of movement even if you cut them up,
because their brains, or more accurately their ganglia
are distributed along the center of their body from head to tail, which is why they
say roaches can survive and move around for some time even after you’ve cut its head off.
Oh no! This ant here is unlucky! The roach splits it in half with its jaws
then flings it away. Ants try their best to sting the roach, with their neurotoxic
fire ant venom known as Solenopsin. This will eventually cause the roach’s legs to go immobile.
Wow! The super majors have been dispatched! See those ants with massive heads?
They’re here to help further cut up the roach. The
colony obviously feels the need for extra jaw force right now.
A crazy active trail has now been established to and from the nest and the roach.
The entire colony is now fully aware that it’s dinner time!
Ants have already begun to suck the juices oozing from the inanimate lower half of the roach,
to help the clotting process along, just so this roach chunk becomes less sticky and dangerous.
As for the upper parts of the roach, still a bit dangerous and the ants risk being chomped on
or getting stuck in the roach guts, but a team of ants have already begun
piling grains of dirt in the stickiest parts of the roach guts, again to draw out the moisture
and help the clotting process along so to render this roach safer to work with.
I’m sorry roach. Thank you for passing your life energy onto our fire ants.
An hour later, the roaches movements have been reduced to sporadic, non-violent twitching.
The roach is no longer a threat, however the ants now are initiating a massive operation
to bury this roach. Burying the roach will again help make the carcass less sticky,
but more importantly help hide this treasure from any larger animal
that might decide to steal it from them. This is a game of survival, so this burial stage is serious
business. They grab debris, chunks of soil, anything they can find to bury the dying roach.
The dead roach is also now undergoing the initial stages of decay
so if they can dry out the roach as much as possible, perhaps it will smell less,
too, which also could be a magnet for larger predators wanting a free meal.
While most of the ants are hyper-focused on burying, a team of ants are already busy
slurping up the tender and edible guts of the roach. As the carcass continues
to dry out from the grains of soil, this eating team will be able to move and feed
deeper into the roach’s body. But not yet. The roach is still moving here and there.
The ants have managed to snip off the roaches antennae
to bring back to the nest for consumption.
Ants up in the floating mountains have also been engaged in the feast.
Seems the entire colony is ready to eat!
I love watching the crazy fire ant trails that form. The entire process,
though gruesome at the start, is also quite incredible to witness.
And now it looks like the ants and the team of supermajors
are moving deeper to begin the dissection process.
By the third hour, the roach has completely died and is motionless. The ants have begun
to feast on the internals of the roach, while some ants stand on guard in case that larger
thief decides to come along and steal the roach they’ve worked so hard to prep for ingestion.
The next day, the roach has been completely consumed.
Most of the roach meat has been hollowed out now, but workers are cleaning the insides
further of any remaining edible meat. These exoskeleton pieces will now join their junk
yard of past meals for the springtails and other soil creatures to further break down.
And so goes the circle of life, guys. This roach will be enough to feed these ants
for 24 hrs. I’m actually due to feed them again this night, and I marvel every time
at the process. Did you find this feeding gross? Cool? Interesting? All of the above?
Whatever the case, you gotta admit, watching fire ants eat is pretty intense and the process of how
they feed is amazing. It’s also amazing to think that this happens all the time out in the wild,
every day, every time an ant colony finds a large dead creature to feed on. Many wild colonies
process as many as hundreds of meals like this in a day. It’s how some ant colonies grow into
the millions! They eat and eat and eat, which is how nature designed them to be. You see ants are
some of the world’s most important decomposers and predators in the ecosystems they’re from.
Like Nature’s little messengers, that return dead or living animals back into the soil,
ants will always be my favourite animals on the planet. Hope you enjoyed this episode,
and until next time, thank you for watching and supporting the ants. It’s ant love forever!
AC Family, hope you enjoyed this week’s episode! So many more ant videos are ahead,
so if you haven't yet do SMASH 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 the Phoenix Empire eating their roach. Go check them out!
And guys, it’s that time of the year again! We just launched our biggest ant promo yet! The AC
Holidays Sale 2020, where you get 20% off our ac Ant Tower Small and ac Hybrid Nest Mini over at
our shop at antscanada.com, and on top of that, if you use the promo code “antloveforever2020”,
you get our Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook ebook, complete with care guides on specific commonly
kept ant species, totally free, which you can add to your cart before checking out!
Our easy-to-use ant farms which you see me use in my videos,
make an awesome holiday gift for anyone who loves ants! We ship worldwide and also offer full email
support if you need our help! Plus, if you didn’t catch a queen ant this season and need ants,
just visit the QUEEN ANTS FOR SALE tab on our site to look for ant colony sellers in your area. Just
a reminder this promo ends January 1st and you need to order before December 17th if within US
or December 10th if outside the US, if you hope to receive your package before Christmas,
so visit AntsCanada.com today, and own your very own ac Ant Farm and pet ant colony.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week. Last week, we asked:
What is honeydew?
Congratulations to William Park who answered:
Honeydew is a byproduct that leaf insects produce that ants love.
Congratulations William Park, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
Why can cockroaches still move their limbs even after they’ve been cut up into pieces?
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!