[Music]
Hey it's me Destin, welcome back to Smarter Every Day. So you're probably
wondering, if you've been watching the amazon series how I took an ink pen, a little scrap
of paper and a camera into the middle of the jungle and walked out with footage of
ants carrying a little sign that says Smarter Every Day. It's actually pretty simple,
and gross. You pee on the paper. I know,
sounds a little weird, but you gotta realise that leaf cutter ants forage for sodium.
But before I show you how exactly we did this and you get to see us make the video
I want to show you a leaf cutter ant colony during the daytime, and then we'll go
back and check out the same colony at night. You're getting Smarter Every Day.
This whole area is a colony? Is that what you call it?
- Yep, um these colonies are known to just, be giants. They're farming ants so they take in
those leaves they grow fungus on so they have to tend to that fungus very very regularly.
So the smaller ones, they really ride on the leaf,
and they clean the leaf, and they also protect the carrying ant
from any decapitating flies that are in the area. - Really?
-Yep. (Destin) They clean the leaf on the way to the colony?
- Yeah so one guy's, like a bigger and will be carrying it, and a little cleaner ant will be on top
there protecting it and cleaning it from any fungus or any crazy stuff
that may be on the leaf. - Awesome.
- There are millions of ants inside this colony, so this is one of several entrances,
probably one of their main highways that they use to go and collect leaves.
(Destin) I'm also told they have one of the most complex social structures. Is that true?
- Yeah. Um, I mean down to the finest of details. Even like
the ants that go out and cut, once they get old, maybe like
three months old and they can't cut as well, then they become carrying ants.
So they kind of retire as a leaf cutter and then they become a leaf carrier. - These are leaf cutter
ant trails. They look like people trails but they're not. One way
you can tell is if you get really close you see next to them, you see all the
little cut leaves. - Um so you can see some of them are starting to come out
a little bit, so I bet you if we came back in a few hours, they would
have come out and go for the trees.
[Rainforest sounds]
(Destin) So what we're gonna do, is we're gonna cut out
little pieces of paper, and we're gonna put some
salty liquid onto a
piece of paper. We're thinking that it will entice them
but, we're gonna find out. Put your headlamp on the leaf.
[Peeing sound] - There you go. [laugh]
- The sound of science ladies and gentlemen. [laugh] - There you go. So what do you want to do first?
- I've got the worst Smarter Every Day one,
and I got it wet on the back side so it doesn't quite...
- Alright, so it doesn't bleed.
[laugh] - Let's try this.
- You want pliers?
- What do we need?
- That's probably it.
- I wonder if we need a... bigger, can we make it bigger?
- [whispered] Oh man, focus wasn't perfect.
So that's it. That's how you get leaf cutter ants to carry your sign.
Special thanks to Mr Torres here. - Of course.
- Entymologist. He's the guy that came up with the idea. Worked well. Alright, that's it.
Getting Smarter Every Day.
These guys aren't playing nice any more.
Going to my base.
So this one's too big
So of course leaf cutter ants are cutting it,
which is still pretty cool. Found him.
Yep, he's about 20 yards away.
[ Captions by Andrew Jackson ] captionsbyandrew.wordpress.com
Captioning in different languages welcome. Please contact Destin if you can help.