A thick hydrating plume of clouds plummet into the newly created virgin world below,
which was about to become the new garden paradise for five peculiar teams of some of the most
interesting and ancient creatures.
These five teams of varying colours, shapes, and patterns will truly captivate you, and
they are all eager to move into their brand new lush home created just for them.
Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel, isopod edition.
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Welcome to the AC Family.
Enjoy!
AC Family, I think these peculiar crustaceans are some of the coolest critters around, and
it’s no wonder they’re growing in popularity among invertebrate keepers.
Isopods are actually quite an ancient order of crustacean, with fossils dating back to
as far as 300 million years ago, way before the dinosaurs!
Today we’ve documented around 10,000 species of isopods, many of which are marine isopods,
living in oceans and some even parasitizing fish.
Ummm yuck!
But trust me, the little cute and colourful exotic isopods, I’m about to show you guys
today, are not ‘yuck’!
They’re harmless land isopods, and may be like nothing you’ve ever seen before!
I believe they will truly steal your heart, as they did mine.
I’ll be creating a gorgeous little kingdom for our new isopods today, and will also be
needing your participation and help to name our teams of isopods, so do put your creative
hats on, AC Family, and do stay tuned for all of that coming up!
But before we meet our cute crustaceans, I have a question to ask you: So if you’re
like me, we saw these isopods growing up in the yard all the time!
In Canada, every time I turned over a log or rock to look for ants, they were always
there living in the same environments with the ants.
Now, we called these guys “potato bugs”, but depending on where you’re from, they
can have other names.
What do you call these guys?
Sowbugs?
Woodlice?
Or these?
Pillbugs?
Rollie pollies?
Let me know in the comments and indicate where you live.
I’m curious how many different names these creatures have cross-geographically.
Anyway, for the purposes of this video, I’ll be calling these creatures isopods.
So, without further ado, let’s meet our new colony of isopods now, shall we?
So here we have five teams of isopods, each unique, each adorable.
As I go through every isopod team, I’ll be asking you what you think we should name
them, and so just leave your name suggestions in the comments section, as we go along, and
I’ll be choosing my top 5 favourites for all of us to vote on in a future video.
Here we go!
First up, we have our first team of 20 isopods, a variation known as ‘Powder Blue’.
To me, they just look like the ordinary woodlice we all know in North America, however they
do have a bit of orange on them.
I find the isopods to have such cute faces, kinda like aliens, kinda like robots, but
with a spirit like Pokemon.
Like most land isopods, they live together in large communities.
Check out this isopod’s marsupium, a sort of water-filled sac at the underside of the
body, full of developing isopod babies which will soon be born from the marsupium.
Congrats, Momma!
Alright, so if you have a name suggestion for these “Powder Blue” isopods, do leave
it in the comments and use the hashtag #PowderBlue so I can find your name suggestion easier.
Next, we have our second team of 20 isopods, which are actually the exact same species
as the ‘Powder Blues’, but simply a different variation, known as ‘Powder Orange’.
I find these Powder Oranges to be super cute and I just love their colour!
Anyone else craving tangerines?
I find due to the colour of these Powder Oranges, their crustacean is really showing and they
look rather shrimpy.
Alright, again please leave your name suggestions for these “Powder Orange” isopods in the
comments and use the hashtag #PowderOrange for easy location.
Next, I present to you our third team of 20 isopods, which are again the same species
as our ‘Powder Blues’ and ‘Powder Oranges’, except their variation is known as ‘Red
Koi’.
Now I find these isopods to be truly gorgeous!
It’s quite obvious to see why they are called Red Koi as their exoskeleton design is very
koi fish-esque!
They’re a rather rambunctious bunch, too!
I can see another female with a marsupium full of young.
Happy to know we’ll soon have many more of these magnificently coloured isopods.
Alright, again please kindly leave your name suggestions for these “Red Koi” isopods
in the comments and use the hashtag #RedKoi.
Our fourth team of isopods, which are again the same species as the Blue and orange powders,
and our red koi, I present to you the variation known as ‘White Out’.
They’re cool right?
Their colour strangely reminds me of ant larvae.
Look at that isopod eating someone’s shed isopod skin!
I wonder if their colour is influenced by diet, and if we feed them green-dyed food,
for instance, they’ll turn green.
Alright, please kindly leave your name suggestions for these “White Out” isopods in the comments
and use the hashtag #WhiteOut.
And finally, our fifth and final team of isopods are not the same species as our previous four
teams, but are a different species known as Cubaris murina!
Unlike the other teams, these isopods are the ‘rollie pollie’ type, capable of rolling
up into a ball in case of danger or to preserve moisture.
To me, they do kinda remind me of the rollie pollies in Canada, except these ones are more
matte, and the adults have a tinge of orange at their front and back, and there’s that
little alien robot face we all love!
Alright, and finally please kindly leave your name suggestions for these “Cubaris” isopods
in the comments and use the hashtag #Cubaris.
And these are our five teams of isopods who will become the pioneering members to our
new isopod colony!
I can’t wait to read all of your creative name suggestions, guys, and for all of us
to VOTE for their official names in their next video.
All of these isopods are native to where I live in Southeast Asia and are a tropical
species, but it’s truly amazing to me that isopod hobbyists have been able to produce
some incredible designer variations from their wild types through selective breeding.
The first four teams which are all the same species are capable of breeding with each
other, but unlike in aquarium shrimp where different colours interbreeding will eventually
lead to all the shrimp being the wild type brown, these isopods will allegedly retain
their colour morphs down through the generations, though some colour variations will be more
dominant than others.
We’ll just have to see as the isopod colony grows in size over time.
Which leads us now to our next order of business: creating an epic home for them!
AC Family, this is where things get real fun!
Behold, the empty shell that will become the capsule of the future world for our isopods.
It yearned and called out into the void, to be filled with life and cradle its own biological
world within its glass skin.
We are about to fulfill this tank’s destiny now.
AC Family, It’s time we create our new isopod kingdom, shall we?!
First, I needed to line the bottom of the tank with gravel.
This will act as the terrarium’s drainage layer.
We don’t want to drown our isopods, so this gravel layer will help drain the soil of water,
keep it from being waterlogged in case we overwater, and allow us to visually see when
it’s time to water again.
Next, some mesh to separate the gravel from the soil layer above.
Then, I needed to add soil.
This would be the life-giving bed in which our plants will be growing, the isopods will
be living, and the beautiful process of bioactivity will be taking place.
And after an hour or so of work, this is what our isopod terrarium looked like.
AC Family, behold!
The future kingdom of our isopod colony, called
The Isopodium.
What do you think?
Let’s have a look around, shall we?
The Isopodium is a simple yet elegant world of huge boulders, mini trees, plants, moss,
and driftwood.
I’ve covered the top of the soil with some white sand to help our isopods stand out within
their home.
I actually designed it to be an Asian-inspired garden diorama.
There are many places for the isopods to find and hide here, which you will see once they
move in!
So, do you think they’ll like it?
I sure hope so.
Alright, so it’s time to populate the Isopodium with our five teams of isopods.
AC Family, let’s do this!
Adding in the Powder Blues, the Powder Oranges, the Red Kois, the White Outs, and the Cubaris.
And done!
Immediately I noticed how beautiful they all looked together, all mixed up.
AC Family, check them out!
The isopods began to break off from the group one by one to explore the territories.
These creatures are herding beasts by nature, so they feel safest when in large groups,
but it only takes a few brave souls and lots of curiosity to eventually get everyone else
breaking off to explore.
They curiously checked out the lands for the best places to hide and chill out in the Isopodium.
They climbed the huge rocks, and more and more continued to explore the territories,
and hey look!
It’s a baby!
How cute!
Welcome to the Isopodium, little one!
It didn’t take the isopods very long to find cool openings and caves in the rocks.
It seemed here was a popular hideout, and here.
So happy they seemed to settle in and enjoy their new territories.
Alright, AC Family, and now to offer our new Isopods a house warming gift, Let’s feed
them!
I dropped in some fish food flakes.
Hope they like these.
The isopods found the flakes and began to feast immediately.
Mmm…
It was just so satisfying to watch the isopods chowing down on our food offerings.
And check out how cute this red koi is munching away at her tasty fish flake.
So cute, I just wanna squish it…
OK, well not really squish it but you know, pinch its little alien robotic face!
I also found it interesting to see the isopod’s organs at work as it fed.
See that organ pulsating and contracting?
How neat!
Though these isopods love this fish food, they will eat pretty much any decaying material,
especially dead leaves from hardwood trees.
It’s incredible to think that throughout the world, terrestrial isopods have become
such important detritivores in the habitats they are from.
And no matter where in the world they exist, or whatever in the world we humans call them,
I realized that we owe a lot to these little crustaceans, for their continued great service
in our ecosystems.
Thank you, isopods on behalf of the entire AC Family!
Many of you guys have been requesting for me to bring isopods onto the channel for so
long, and so I’m super happy to finally bring them to the channel.
You too can keep isopods in a very simple setup like mine, providing them rocks or driftwood
to hide in, a daily mist for moisture, and lots of dead leaves, vegetation, and fish
flakes.
It’s because these creatures are so good at breaking down decaying material, that they’ve
become a popular addition to bioactive terrariums, as of late.
They’re great at cleaning up the garbage from outworlds and tanks, and will eat up
food leftovers, animal poop, and even shed skin from reptiles.
The isopod poop that results, then goes on to create good fertilizer for the plants growing
in the setups!
I do encourage you guys to try adding them into your ant farms and/or terrariums, and
see how well they do at keeping things cleaner and greener!
You better believe I’ll be adding our isopods into my various ant farms and terrariums,
but for now, I think I’ll allow them to breed and establish a good population first,
within the Isopodium before I seed them into my other setups.
I’m pretty sure the ants will leave them alone and allow them to share their environment,
or perhaps the ants might possibly see them as a food source.
We’ll just have to see.
I’ll be sure to keep you updated on the progress of our new Isopod kingdom over time.
I can’t wait for the Isopodium to become a booming village of multi-coloured isopods,
loving life and the pretty world we created for them.
Thank you all for watching!
It’s ant and isopod love forever!
AC Family, did you guys enjoy today’s episode?
I look forward to the progress of this new isopod colony of ours, and I will be sure
to keep you updated!
So, if you haven’t yet, follow the continuing stories of the creatures of the Antiverse,
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 see extended
play footage of our new isopods living in the Isopodium!
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 is your favourite feature of the new Ant Room?
Congratulations to Jessi Elliott who answered:
The window on the balcony!
Congratulations Jessi, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
Which was your favourite team of isopods and why?
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!