OMG, I believe I have just filmed the most gruesome, disturbing, and even morally challenging video I have ever shot in my entire life. This here
is my Fire Ant colony, which you, the viewers have voted to be called "The Fire Nation", and as they say,
all was well until the fire nation attacked.
You see, I've been receiving an unbelievable amount of requests to feed The Fire Nation here live prey,
but if you've watched our previous videos you'll know tha] I've been very reluctant to do so.
Ethically, it was always hard for me to feed live prey, and so I've always fed freshly killed insects.
Somehow I felt it would lessen their suffering. But for this video
I decided to put my ethics aside,
and show all of you curious once and for all, what it's like to feed an aggressive ant colony like this live insects.
In this video,
I feed this fire ant colony three sizes of cockroaches.
You'll see them struggle, and you'll see them dying, but what's most shocking is what happens at the end.
I completely didn't expect that, and what you guys will see in this video will probably traumatize you for a very long time.
And so I must warn you guys, viewer discretion is strongly advised. Welcome everyone to the AntsCanada ant channel.
All right, so let's take it back to where all of this first started.
Last night I introduced The Fire Nation to their newest home, an AC Outworld.
Naturally decorated using a desert and Oasis biome (unaudible, sorry). The ants took to the land right away.
And I loved watching them move in. If you want to watch the ants moving into this unit
Click this I-card here to watch the ants moving in, or you could watch this video and click it later.
I'll also put the link in the description box.
So it's been exactly 24 hours since Fire Nation has moved into this new unit, and already they've begun to customize the space.
Check out this hole they made. It leads directly into the nest. They've also created other holes,
as seen here. This nest entrance seems to be a popular one, 'cause I see a lot of ants hiding deep inside, guarding the entrance.
It seems they really-really like this space. In fact, ants are usually very picky when it comes to their own real estate.
Just like most humans, ants also like their property perfect, and pristine.
Check out this ant, who's taken it upon herself, to chop up this piece of Spanish moss.
It seems she wants to move it out of the way.
I find ants to be really amazing at planning and design. It seems ants
collectively have an idea what structures they want to keep around their homes, and which they want to get rid of, and clear up.
Outside you might come across some anthills, or
ant nests out in the wild, and you'll notice that a lot of them have had the area cleared.
If this new space will become another satellite nest,
they'll need the space cleared in order to accommodate all of the traffic, that will be passing through this area.
Of course, somewhere around here, they're gonna dump all their garbage, and establish a graveyard site. Oh yeah, and a bathroom near me. Okay, now
I know you guys are dying to see what it looks like
Inside the nest so here we go this here is one of the many entrances
and if you look to [the] back
You'll see a bunch of ants
crowding around and just kind of hanging out the floor is covered with a thin layer of sand which they've
customized and moved into several piles
This layer of sand is what will be holding the moisture which will humidify this entire nest space these ants like their nests
Moderately dry, but they do need humidity
Especially for the brood these ends hanging out there in the back are kind of camping out there
Sort of testing the space and are kind of gauging whether or not this new space will make a suitable
satellite nest for Fellow sisters the Brood and possibly the Queen I
Suspect Fire nation will start to move into this nest in about four or five days if it passes colony approval of course
Now if you look over here these ants are crowding around one of the entrances
If this is going to be one of their new bases you better believe they're going to be defending it like crazy
By the way guys this entire unit took less than an hour to make and use two simple products from our shop at ncAa.com
And I actually Facebook live-streaming click this I card here to watch the Facebook live stream, or click the link
I'll put in the description box
Now fire ants wouldn't be fire ants if they weren't breaking the rules, as you can see here these girls are completely
Tunneling through the hardening ground plate and creating their own tunnels
I'm sure it won't be long before this entire unit will have tunnels that these ants have made.
It's as if the cavern I gave them simply wasn't enough.
Look at their progress in just 24 hours!
Now I know some of you guys might be asking, "AntsCanada why do I see tape down there?"
well, i place tape here just for that extra insurance
Because fire ants can chew through most adhesives, they chew through glue, silicone, and hot glue gun.
So if you're paranoid like me, you place tape in all places where the acrylic meets other acrylic
Okay, I can already hear you guys and a lot of you are saying it's already five minutes and 30 seconds into the video
I'm gonna see cockroaches being eaten and the epic gross ending.
Okay, but before I get to that let me say a few things.
First, it's always a good idea to pre-kill your insects
This ensures that your ants don't get injured while they're eating their prey, but also for those of you with less aggressive species
It actually helps the ants out. So if their prey insects are already dead in fact many ant species are more specialized in
Scavenging and feeding on other creatures that are already dead many ants are important decomposers more so than they [are] predators
Okay, but these fire ants are indeed predators
They are super aggressive and are fully capable of taking down prey many times their size
By the way guys if dealing with fire ants
[I] highly suggest that you wear gloves when [working] around them because their stings really hurt and can cause swollen itchy bumps which last week's
Fire ants use their powerful stings and sharp jaws to subdue their prey and are ready to attack any time
and they're particularly aggressive when confronting creatures on their property and
Finally, I'd like to make one thing clear
I find fire ants demand a great amount of respect
And I'm not going to be a youtuber who's going to sensationalize their predatory instincts
So my hopes for this video is that all of you guys watching will gain some kind of insight into the intricacies of their predatory
behavior in other words
Education guys not entertainment. So here we go feeding fire nation live insects
Okay, so let's start now with [a] baby cockroach it only takes a few seconds before a few workers subdue
It sting it and paralyze him fire ants. Have a toxin called
Solenopsis A
Neurotoxin which they inject using a very sharp stinger this baby cockroach had no chance at all all it can do now is
Breathe as it becomes more and more paralyzed other ants swarm in and begin cutting it up for consumption
It'll likely take these ends just a few hours to [have] this baby cockroach processed
Okay, now it's time [for] me to feed a slightly larger cockroach named
Instantly the cockroach begins to make a run [for] it as it runs about the fire ants cling on and begin stinging it vigorously [in]
excruciating pain the cockroach continues to run and struggle
But in the end, it's no use
This thing's eventually subdue the cockroach and paralyze it as well
It seems like a lot more ants on the surface were agitated by [this] cockroach
Probably because of the size and the commotion it was causing
Speaking of a commotion it seems. We have a special guest making an appearance just to check out what everyone's raving about on the surface
Do you see her over there?
It's a virgin queen elate born from the original queen that's just waiting around now for nuptial flight
Reproductive ends like this queen as well as males are born at a certain period of the Colony's development
And they pretty much wait around the nest until the great nuptial flight where they breed and start colonies of their own
Looks like she's not too interested in this cockroach for now, so she heads back to inspect the [new] Nest
these worker ants will continue to work on this cockroach for the next 10 hours or so and
The Majors which are the larger ends will be the ones to help cut it up
Just because its exoskeleton is a little more tough and these majors have huge heads full of muscle specializing in cutting
[alright], and finally. [I'm] going to feed an adult cockroach to this very hungry and aggressive ant colony now
You must remember that this adult cockroach is many times larger than the ants
Instantly it makes a run for it, but sadly in a lethal direction as it falls directly into the nest [now]
It's one thing to be on top of a fire ant nest but it's another thing to be
Inside the fire ant nest the ants instantly Swarm this cockroach
And she stands no chance of survival
Instantly she's paralyzed from the swarm of stinging fire ants now
I don't know about you guys
But [I] swear I cannot get used to this [a] great part of me finds this so cruel
Which is why I try to pre kill all prey before feeding and even that. I never get used to and
Just when I thought I had seen the worst something extraordinary
Appalling and something I had never seen before happened right before my eyes
The cockroach was beginning to give birth
When pregnant cockroaches are killed and fall prey to other animals
They automatically eject the egg Sac in
Hopes that her babies get a chance to survival
Look at that guy's
oh
My God, I couldn't believe this happened, [and] with one final push. The eGg [sack] was free
The [aunt] seemed like they didn't know exactly what to do with this exact and what happened next
Shocked me even more the cockroach babies began hatching from the egg sac. Oh my God look at them
These babies haven't even been born for seconds and their very first experience into the world are
stinging biting fire ants
The ants of the fire nation are ruthless the baby cockroaches are white as their exoskeletons are still soft
Which makes stinging and biting super easy for the ants
The ants begin carrying away, the babies one by one for further consumption
Can you believe that guys wow I?
can't believe we filmed this and
Look at the cockroach still contracting her insights
while filming this I was disgusted
speechless and in complete awe of the drama that was happening within this ant nest
I
Was just completely shocked while this entire thing unfolded of course my heart was weeping for these baby cockroaches
I completely did not anticipate this
Most of us n. Keepers are not only fans of ants, but are lovers of other creatures
Including cockroaches, and I couldn't help but feel an enormous amount of guilt
and
Look at these baby cockroaches that hadn't even had a chance to break free [from] the egg [sack]. They really had no chance at survival
Now I know this is all part of Nature, but I couldn't help [but] feel responsible
I
Look towards the colony of the [fire] [nation] I
Looked at the Larvae which I knew needed food and the thousands of ants that waited in various satellite nests to be Fed I
Knew that these cockroaches were going to sustain my colony and nourish them for days
This is how [I] tried to justify you, but as I looked at the cockroach
And it's now ruptured necked from all of the contracting I
Couldn't help but think about a comment
that one of you guys left in one of my past videos and
That part of the appeal of an keeping is that in a way?
We sort of play the position of God
The fate of this colony depends completely on us they depend on us for food to help clean [up] their garbage
To give them housing and all the resources they need to survive we have an omniscient view into the lives of these animals
but after experiencing this I almost feel like
Maybe we humans don't have what it takes to play God [I]?
Started to think [that] this perceived Dominion over this micro world as ant Colony is
Just an illusion of God [feel] the death of mere cockroaches really disturbed me on so many levels
It felt far from comfortable
Nature cannot be tamed. We humans are part of it and definitely not above it
And I realized that we [should] feel privileged to be able to witness powerful events like this and not feel entitled to mother nature
Entertaining for me what we just filmed is super humbling and a great reminder that we should respect nature
Thank you guys for watching the ants [camera] and channel and always remember it's ant love forever
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