Oh my God! AC Fam, this video has got to be
one of the craziest I have ever filmed
on this channel. Today I made the random
decision to flood my fire ant colony: the
Fire Nation and what happened was
completely not what I expected and
totally shocked me. What happens to an
ant colony when it rains? Will this
captive raised fire ant colony survive or
will the Fire Nation, workers, brood, queen,
and all die and fail to adapt to their
very first experience of a flood?
I didn't know. Could ants even swim?
You won't want to miss all the action ahead
so keep watching until the end.
Put on your wetsuits, AC family, because
this is going to be one epic wave of
adventure here at the AntsCanada Ant Channel
I used to feel like I provided my ants
with the perfect lives.
I mean how could it not be perfect?
Let's look at the living space of the Fire
Nation here. We give them all the living
space they need. The larger the colony
gets, the more territory units I add to
their setup like this new outworld
addition here, where we now film our ant
reaction time lapse videos and if you
look there in the distance you'll see
the remains of one of our previous ant
react videos where the ants were eating
a sugar statue of Hillary Clinton which
brings me to food. I felt these fire ants
had the perfect lives because they get
fed every day a varied diet, food they
don't really have to work for, and for them
it just sort of falls from the sky
right on time every day, something new
and if you look to the foreground you'll see a
new graveyard site that they've
established in this new Fire Nation
territory. Our ants here don't have to
worry about predators nor injury and
being in an indoor set up the dangers of
acquiring ant diseases or parasites is
reduced so these ants here in the
graveyard have all died from natural
causes
having lived there two-month lifespan
and simply dying of old age after what
is safe to call a perfect life right?
Well, let's take a look at the Antagon now
our intricate network of tubes
crossroads and water test tubes. The Fire
Nation has all the water they need and
don't need to travel too far to visit
any of our five water test tubes
available to them at various places of
their setup and the Fire Nation drinks a
lot of water. These test tubes run out
and need to be changed every four days.
Ants are visiting these water reservoirs
24-7 and these locations of the Fire
Nation are always busy and if you look
here into this tube they've pulled and
collected bits of the cotton from the
water reservoirs creating a sort of ant
road which I bet they find easier to
walk on than the smooth tubing. How
crafty right?
Follow the white cotton road, follow the
white cotton road
Ok not sure if you Millennials know that
reference but moving on...
Alright enough of the Fire Nation
highlands now
let's move down to the lowlands. Here
you'll see Solenopsis Hill and Fire
Ant Mountain and all the dirt they've
caused. See all that brown stuff? That is
an ant bathroom. Each ant visits this
place perhaps once a day
eliminates their waste then moves on and
it all connects here for me to clean up.
In the wild microbes and other small
creatures help break this down but of
course I'm their ant keeper so I gotta
take care of this once a week. So you see
the ants of the Fire Nation here have
a pretty predictable safe secure and
spoiled life better than the lives they
would have been living in the wild
wouldn't you think so?
Well up until recently I thought so
until one day something occurred to me
that made me question the quality of
life i was giving these ants of the Fire
Nation. Now here in the Philippines it
rained a few days ago and the humidity
caused more of the alates than usual to
emerge from the inside of the nests.
See these queen alates here? They're kind of
just wandering around and if you look
here you'll see a male alate. Now these
male and female alates feel the changes in
humidity and naturally are induced to
mate and attempt to nuptial fly but
because they're indoors and not
completely exposed to the environmental
cues that cause ants to have nuptial flights
in the wild these alates just sort of
confusedly walk around. It's as if
they're saying "Okay I know I should be
out here but I don't know why things
don't seem quite right and I'm not sure
what to do next" and suddenly it occurred
to me
I'm not providing these ants the perfect
life. I realized that a perfect life for
a human like me might not be the same as
a perfect life for ants like these ants
from the Fire Nation and so I decided to
start a new mission. As their provider
the one who ultimately gets to decide
what happens in their universe I was
going to start trying my best to
duplicate their life in the wild.
Perhaps that would be their perfect life
a life they would be living in the wild
and looking at the Fire Nation's allates
just congregating in their nests
waiting for humidity cues from the
long-awaited rains to signal when they
should fly my first Fire Nation natural
event was going to be a mass flood.
Here we go guys.
May God help the Fire Nation.
Here in the tropics fire ants are forced to deal
with massive rains. In the Philippines we
receive an average of 20 typhoons or
tropical storms a year and floods happen
all the time be it in cities and
communities or in forested and wild
areas. Fire ant colonies have even been
known to form living rafts using just
their bodies so for sure these ants were
able to withstand some kind of flooding
right or is that something colonies
learn as they grow? It made me question
whether this captive raised colony the
Fire Nation would be able to fend for
themselves if they did live out in the
wild
in light of the fact that they weren't
really exposed to the elements and
factors that I as their human caregiver
wanting to give them the perfect life
initially perceived as unwanted dangers
to their comfortable existence but no it
was time to do the right thing and make
the ants uncomfortable for once I needed
to stop thinking from a human's
perspective and start thinking from a
red tropical fire ant's perspective.
Keeping them from natural experiences I
find might not be helping them so my
plan was to flood their two main nests
Solenopsis Hill and Fire Ant Mountain and
see how they react to this small natural
disaster.
I just felt the ants needed some kind of
enrichment you know what I mean? A little
more stimulation that was different from
their everyday happenings. Now I wasn't
planning on unleashing a Noah's Ark type
flood because these outworlds don't
allow for drainage of large amounts of
water but I wanted to add just enough to
create a teenage sized flood. Again as a
human at face value it is very
nerve-racking because I think about all
those ants, the main queen, the babies all
that brood being underwater and the
thought is truly scary but on the other
hand I think
20 typhoons and tropical storms a year,
mass flooding, these tropical fire ants
nest in the ground so they must have some
way to deal with flooding right?
Well, we're about to find out. To be honest
guys I've never tried anything like this
with any of my ant colonies before and I
highly encourage all of you guys to not
try this with your ant colonies at home
if you don't own a tropical species or a
species that's known to deal with a wet
climate. Here goes nothing
1
2
3
I released the water onto the Fire Nation
Ants. brood. alates, possibly the queen were
submerged under the big body of water
that just fell into Solenopsis Hill.
The sight of seeing all those ants underwater
left me absolutely speechless.
The ants were not floating, they weren't
forming a raft with their bodies.
I couldn't help but think could this
have all been one big mistake? There was
nothing else to do now but watch how the
Fire Nation was going to deal with this
flood.
Hold on a second. Let's stop this dramatic music!
I noticed as the water began to subside
which naturally happens in a nest like
this because capillary action sucks
water into the spaces between the nest
and the acrylic of this outworld
it seemed like the Fire Nation was
really kind of chill. They weren't
panicking at all.
It's kind of odd. I assume that if this
mini experiment didn't work out that
they would just completely panic and go crazy
rushing their brood in all directions in
a mad dash and just go completely
berserk
but no the ants kinda kept their cool.
Quite calmly and nonchalantly they
started to mobilize and bring the brood
to higher areas. The workers of the Fire
Nation began bringing the larvae and the
brood and eggs towards the back of
Solenopsis Hill. Some began carrying the
larvae upwards. It was so peculiar and
unexpected to see because usually when
I'm sticking my fingers in there or I
place some food into their outworld
the ants go completely crazy but flood
their nest and it seems like they just
go into routine. It's almost like they
knew exactly what to do.
I could almost hear the ants saying
"Alright guys, it's raining. You all know the
drill!"
Isn't that funny, guys? Look at how
relaxed they seem. When I saw this I
decided to throw in another wave of
water. This time I was going to let a
steady stream go and add more water than
before. I watched as the Fire Nation was
submerged underwater once again
but this time around I noticed something
very interesting that I hadn't noticed
before.
Check it out! This time it looked like a
silver lining was coating the ants.
The ants weren't drowning. They were
enveloped in a layer of air. It became
much more evident when I went back to
edit this video. During both times that I
added the water when the fire ants were
together they were able to not break the
surface tension of the water
and were cushioned by a layer or a bubble
of air.
Wow it's no wonder these ants can
survive floods. They're perfectly adapted
to being submerged and this layer of air
helps them float on water.
I wonder if the ants have some kind of
hair that helps them create this air
pocket or if their simple anatomic
design when in a group causes them to
not break the surface tension of the
water.
Whatever it was it was super cool to
watch.
Imagine if being together for humans
caused us to all float and cause us to
create a protective air bubble
underwater. It's an amazing thing to
think about.
Now as the water began to subside the
ants continued to move the brood but to
my surprise
another cool thing they did was they
began drinking the water. Workers came to
the site of the flood to get a fresh
drink of this fall in water and a few
hours later they even began to make use
of the moist ground plate and started
digging tunnels. The ants seemed
determined to make total use of this
fallen water.
Overall I was so impressed with how
these ants truly were able to deal with
this flood. It's no wonder they can
survive all of these storms and typhoons.
Silly me for underestimating these
ants.
As the ants of the Fire Nation here in
Solenopsis Hill continue to carry on
with business as usual I went on to
flood Fire Ant Mountain and again the
same result: the ants dealt with the
water like masters. Watching these ants
deal with this grand scale natural
disaster really struck me. It made me
realize that while we humans feel like
this earth is ours and that we are the
ultimate masters of it and are even
capable of thinking that we can master
the world of thousands and thousands
of ants in a set up in our home, in
reality we're not the Masters. Natural
disasters of epic proportions take lives
of humans every year, cause damage to our
homes and cities, break down the
structures of civilization that we've
built, and in one sweep can wipe out
everything we have.
Are we really masters of this world?
These fire ants dealt with this micro
flood beautifully but every day around
the world even in your very backyard
wild ants are dealing with floods
millions of times this size and are able
to continue with life as normal without
even batting an eyelash.
Okay well, an antenna. It's no wonder ants
have survived millions of years, survived
a mass extinction on this planet, and
will likely survive millions of years
past our species' extinction whenever
that might be. Perhaps it's something to
think about the next time you see an ant.
They are our elders, they were on the
planet first, and they are our masters
not the other way around.
As for the Fire Nation here the colony I
serve, well, I was pleased to watch the
alates following the night of the flood
attempting to nuptial flight as they
would after a storm in the wild. Really
amazing! I think I'll continue to do
periodic flooding of this colony every
time it rains here in Manila so I'll
leave it to mother nature to decide
their flooding schedule not me.
Forever on a quest to learn how to
provide these pet ants with the perfect
life I was happy to learn on this day
that not even water could put out the
Fire Nation.
Alright guys thanks so much for watching
this video.
What did you guys think? Isn't the Fire
Nation such a cool colony of ants? Of
course for you Inner Colony members I've
created a hidden cookie here if you just
want to watch the ants reacting to the
flood. It was a long process and I had to
edit it down but you can watch the whole
thing here. And now it's time for the AC
question of the week. Last week we asked
what is the name of the anatomical
structure found on harvester ants that
inspired Austrian taxonomist Gustav
Mayr to come up with the name Pogonomyrmex?
Congratulations to It'z Diablo who
correctly answered: the Psammophore.
Congratulations It'z Diablo, you just
won a free shirt from our shop and for
this week's question of the week we
ask: What is the average number of
tropical storms or typhoons the
Philippine Islands receive on a yearly
basis?
Leave your answer in the comments
section and you could win a free ebook
from our shop.
Alright and now time for an announcement.
this Christmas season you've got the
chance to start ant keeping or give your
special science lover something cool for
Christmas.
i'm super excited to announce our
christmas sale of twenty percent off on
all Omni Nest products including the All
You Need Omni Nest Gear Pack and AC
outworlds and on top of that we've got
an exciting ant keeper beginners promo.
So get this: if you order the All You
Need Omni Gear Pack which is already
at twenty percent off just add our
Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook to your
shopping cart, enter the promo code
"beginner" and we give you the handbook
absolutely free.
Another cool thing is we now have E-gift
cards so if you're buying a gift for
someone and are afraid it won't get to
you by Christmas time you can simply buy
a gift card and they could choose what
they want from our shop. Just remember
guys to plan ahead. You can actually get
all of our sale items before Christmas
as long as you order before December 18th.
I'll leave all relevant links to the
sale and promo in the description box so
check it out. Now is such a great time to
start ant keeping, guys. I would love for
you guys to ant keep with me and spread
that ant love!
Take care guys! Until next time AC Fam
its ant love forever!