Greetings, AC Family!
Game of Thrones fans anyone?
Well, we have lots of work to do today.
First, our last video hit #4 TRENDING in USA which finally lifted the channel to over 900K
subscribers.
Congratulations, AC family!
We are on the road together marching like ants with a mission towards the big 1M.
Let me know what video you guys would like to see on the day we hit that hallmark number.
Also, this week we celebrate the 2 yr anniversary of the AntsCanada Ant Forum at AntsCanada.com
and to celebrate this, we are holding a contest giving away FREE Omni Nest Small formicariums
to a handful of lucky winners.
Stay tuned until the end of this video for full contest details.
Now, Game of Thrones fans, to further immortalize the epic ant kingdoms we have grown to love
and learn about on this channel, I've decided that it was time we gave official flags for
each of our colonies.
Today, we will go over the biographies of each of our ant colonies, so if you're new
to this channel, sit back and prepare to discover why our rapidly growing AC Family has come
to love these ants.
Let's immortalize our ant colonies with their very own special flags!
You won't want to miss a single moment of our ant history, and just a hint, there are
some shocking plot twists in this video that will make you go "whhhhhaaattttt?"!
Let's take a nostalgic walk together down memory lane as we embark on a worldwide, crowd-sourced
search for official flags to represent our beloved ant kingdoms, on this episode of the
AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Please subscribe to my channel, and hit the bell icon, welcome to the AC Family.
Enjoy!
Let's start with the oldest of our five ant kingdoms.
The Fire Nation, the name our AC Family gave to our famous, aggressive and lethal colony
of red tropical fire ants.
We are proud of this explosive ant colony and always give them ultimate respect.
We watched these ants start in small Hybrid Nests and followed them as their setup grew
with the addition of AC Outworlds, eventually becoming a huge network of tubes and units.
We watched these ants completely own a natural disaster, easily overcoming a massive flash
flood.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about this massive colony of millions of members is that
they all came from just a single queen ant.
One mother birthed this entire colony.
I have not seen this queen since we first acquired the colony, and I don't expect to
see her ever again as they conceal her well.
She is the most important member of this colony because if she dies, there would then be no
one to lay eggs, and the population would eventually fizzle out.
This species cannot reinvent nor create a new egg-laying queen to take over.
These fire ants are a stinging species and aggressively sting all prey that end up on
their territory.
I one of the most famous, or perhaps infamous videos on this channel, we watched as the
Fire Nation devoured a pregnant cockroach which ended up ejecting its egg sac, from
which baby cockroaches emerged, only to then be devoured by the savage fire ants.
Now, for those of you wanting to take a stab at designing a flag for the Fire Nation, what
you must do is visit the link I place in the description box and it will take you to the
forum thread where you can post your flag entry.
I will choose my Top 3 favourites, and you the AC Family will be able to VOTE for your
favourite in a future video.
Moving on to the Dark Knights, our black crazy ants, also one of our oldest colonies on this
channel.
Other than the fact that their population has also exploded since the start, these ants
are the complete oppositve of the Fire Nation.
The Dark Knights are quick moving, capable of running circles around the Fire Nation.
We watched as some black crazy ants moved like ninjas through the Fire Nation with incredible
ease.
They also are stingless, and are non-aggressive.
We watched as they went from just two queens and some workers in a test tube to a huge
super colony in a 2 storey 40 ft setup which spanned the two floors of my condo.
What is interesting about the Dark Knights is that they actually are capable of creating
multiple egg-laying queens.
As we discovered in a past video this species is capable of double cloning making sibling
reproductives genetically unrelated and therefore eliminating the possibility for incest to
happen if siblings were to mate, giving these ants the opportunity to produce as many egg-laying
queens as possible.
This colony is techincally an immortal colony which can self-perpetuate forever as long
as they keep producing queens that mate with their birth brothers within the nest.
I have recently changed up one of their units by placing a large pot with an aloe vera plant
in it to better provide the Dark Knights with moisture.
And now, AC Family, are you ready for our first plot twist.
As I was working around the Dark Knight's setup, I noticed that some workers were pinning
down and locking jaws with fellow black crazy ants.
At first, I thought nothing of it.
Perhaps some wild black crazy ants from my condo fell into their enclosure and so they
were seizing these savage ants.
But later I realized, "Wait a sec.
What if these ants were not savage black crazy ants, but were in fact fellow members of the
Dark Knights?"
Oh no!
Ac Family, could it be that the Dark Knights are turning on their own?
Let's review how this could be possible.
The current territories of the Dark Knights are comprised of two major nests, home bases
located at two separate locations connected by 40 ft of tubing.
Now the way ant colonies work is each ant colony has its own distinct colony scent,
like an ID badge telling fellow ant colony members that it belongs to the same colony.
Now, it could be possible that over time these two nests began to develop independently to
the point that they each started to develop their own distinct colony scents.
This means then, that the Dark Knights may have possibly developed into the Dark Knights
of the North, and the Dark Knights of the South, and may now be creeping towards a possible
civil war of North and South colonies.
Wow!
But then again, it could be possible that these ants that the Dark Knights were seen
attacking may be savage, wild ants that fell into their territory.
There was only one way to find out.
I offered the Dark Knights of the South some red-dyed honey so that the Dark Knights would
drink it, and its members would all eventually be filled with this red dye.
So if the Dark Knights of the North were indeed warring with their Southern counterparts,
I would see the red members going at it with the Dark Knights of the North.
So far, I don't see any of that happening yet, but I will let you know if I do see any
evidence of a Dark Knights Civil war happening.
So, AC Family, if you're going to design an official flag for the Dark Knights, I suggest
you submit both a North and South flag, as we may need to make these two seperate kingdoms.
Isn't that just crazy!
We have a total Game of Thrones storyline happening here!
An epic ant war against their own may be brewing!
So again, if you're submitting a flag entry for the Dark Knights, just click the link
in the description box and post your flag entries.
Moving along now to the Golden Empire, our majestic kingdom of yellow crazy ants, rapidly
becoming our most popular ant colony on this channel.
This ant colony has gone through a lot!
They started with two queens and a few workers and were fused with a single queen mature
colony, which then went on to suffer a period of colony infection from life-threatening
mites, which we tried to cure with exposure to lemons, the movement of the colony into
a huge tank, and eventually the further fusion with another 5 queen supercolony.
The Golden Empire which is now mite-free, thriving, and exploding in population as they
live in harmony and disharmony with their various tank-mates has become the central
focus of most of our recent ant videos simply due to how epic their story has unfolded.
So AC Family, please do feel free to submit your flag entries for the Golden Empire in
the link in the description box and we will vote for our favourite in a future video.
Now moving on to the Jaw-Breakers, our menacing giant colony of trap-jaw ants.
This colony came to us in ints infancy with a queen and a few workers and eventually grew
into a colony of 30 or so members.
The Jawbreakers, to our surprise were more shy than we thought, and were more careful
with their food choices.
They rejected roaches that were too big and with great care, carried food that passed
their levels of standard into their nest for consumption.
We even watched in awe as their one royal queen gave birth to an egg.
The Jawbreakers instantly became a channel favourite and even won by a landslide vote
a couple weeks ago to occupy this new terrarium which is awaiting habitation from one of our
ant colonies.
The Jawbreakers was a promising colony awaiting to enter its golden years.
"Was" is the important word here, AC Family.
Are you ready for it?
As we know in nature, inevitably where there is birth and life, there is also murder and
death, and in some cases it happens sooner than we expect.
AC Family, I am sad to inform you that I came home one night to a mass of savage black crazy
ants completely covering the container in which the Jawbreakers lived, despite there
being baby powder along the outside!
I tried in a panic to shoo all the wild ants away, but sadly, it was too late.
The savage black crazy ants had eaten and killed our Jawbreakers.
They had made away with all the brood, even took away the workers, and there was no trace
of the queen anywhere.
I am sorry about this AC Family.
Our Jawbreakers are officially a dead kingdom.
So, we will not be taking entries for this murdered ant colony.
How can we seek vengeance for this massacre?
I know where the wild ant colony lives.
Their nest lays somewhere in a crack in the wall on my balcony.
Quietly in their three tower lair, lives the majestic Titans, our colony of Asian Marauder
ants.
They've been quiet and strengthening their numbers in their current setup.
This species is super impressive due to their massive supermajors which act as colony guards.
The polymorphism in this species is incredible.
The tiny minors hitch rides on their massive sisters which move like tanks, protecting
the colony and helping with cutting up food.
Check out the massive queen here.
We are lucky to see her.
Usually they conceal her well.
She is almost always accompanied by a cohort of supermajors protecting her.
Watching her move into this setup was truly magnificent.
So, AC Family, please do feel free to submit your flag entries in the link in the description
and we will vote based on my top favourite picks in a future video.
And there you have it, AC Family.
A myrmecological Game of Thrones of sorts, this channel will continue to follow these
ant kingdoms in the weeks to come.
I invite you to take part and try posting your flag submissions for our ant colonies
in our AC Forum on our website and you could win a free Omni Nest Small from our shop.
You can submit a flag for one, some or all the colonies.
Good luck and as always, thank you for watching another episode of the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Until next week, AC Family, it's ant love forever!
Alright, AC Family, what an adventure it's been together right?
We've been through sad moments, scary moments, triumphant, and inspiring moments.
I am honoured to have shared the journey with you guys.
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would just like to see
some extended play footage of some of our past highlights of each colony.
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week we asked:
"What creature other than the ants feeds on the insects that enter my
ant room at night?"
Congratulations to MealsOnWheels who correctly answered:
The house geckoes
Congratulations MealsOnWheels you just won a Free Ant T-Shirt from our shop.
And for this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What ant colony killed our beloved Jawbreakers?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free test tube portal
from our shop, perfect for housing your starting ant colonies caught during this year's nuptial
flight season, before Snow comes.
Hehe.
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we release a new ant video every Saturday at
8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE to the channel if you enjoyed this
video.
It's ant love forever!