What do you do when a massive colony of stinging and aggressive ants
decide to launch a full out raid on your home? Well, most ordinary people would say: freak out,
pull out the serious bug spray, make an emergency call to the exterminator,
or run. But me, I guess I’m no ordinary person. I decided to feed the ant army
and give them exactly what they wanted, and you won’t believe how the ants reacted to my gifts
and what the swarm decided to do the next day! Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel, and hit the BELL ICON. Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy!
So living in the tropics is certainly an interesting experience, and coming face to face
with this sudden and ravenous swarm of ants, known as Marauder ants, as you will see in this video
is terrifying, intriguing, and a true natural force to recon with! But what truly shocked me
was what happened the day after, I decided to appease the ant horde that was in the midst of
taking over my home, with some food gifts. I think you guys will love how this entire story ends.
So let’s start at the beginning. I woke up one day to my dogs yelping,
and upon closer inspection of their paws, I found ants had been the culprit,
and when I had a look outside, I was shocked at what I saw.
A battalion of ants moving like determined soldiers in formation.
Their trail weaved all around the side and back of my home,
as if they were a living tentacle emerging from holes and drains in the ground.
I was very familiar with this notorious species of ant. They were Carebara diversa, Marauder Ants.
I’ve kept this species of ant before, and if you’ve been following this channel for awhile,
you may remember the legendary pet ant colony I once owned called the Titans.
They’re ravenous, truly aggressive ants, with an appetite for anything they can consume. When they
form raids like this, they mean business as they sweep the floor of anything edible they can find.
I watched as the swarm carried their edible treasures down the line assumingly to devour
together in their main nest somewhere. That right there is an insect body part,
a couple little unlucky insects, and that there looks like a tiny snail shell.
The ants guarded each of their little prizes closely, be they random finds, little seeds,
or squashed insects they managed to snatch up from around my property.
They even stole my dog’s food right out of their bowls!
Look at them riding that dog pellet cackling as they marched it all the way home!
I was amazed at how the ants masterfully carried
these huge edible boulders of dog food across what were to the ants very vast distances!
Watching the ants march their food down the line was actually quite impressive and entertaining. My
guess was that the ants were forming some kind of transport connection line between satellite
nests and their main nest. The ants seemed to stream out of several holes around my home,
which to me meant the ants were nesting pretty much all around.
Looking closely at the line, I did notice that there were ants with very specific jobs,
like these ants which seem to just stand around. I knew these were the guards,
simply standing in place or pacing around slowly ever ready to attack
in case any creature or enemy would be foolish enough to advance.
I was unlucky enough to be bitten by a couple of them. These ants not only bite,
but they do also have stingers, and their attacks on tender skin areas feel like pin pricks!
Other insects would not dare cross this marauder ant trail,
like this hairy caterpillar which I spotted fully parked at a safe location adjacent to
the edge where the guards were. I believe it knew, it had no choice but to wait for the swarm to pass
before proceeding to locate its next plant to devour.
But I think the most crazy and my personal favourite thing about these ants were these!
Here one comes now! Supermajors!
Marauder ants are known as polymorphic, meaning their workers come in various shapes and sizes.
Every now and then, I would spot these huge supermajors marching menacingly down the line,
with other ants riding on them! It’s suspected that the smaller worker ants
do this to help preserve energy. I mean, if I were one of these ants, why not hitch a ride
and give your little legs a rest! The enormous size of these super majors, particularly their
large heads, are functional. They specialize in cutting things open, food, enemies, or otherwise!
I also saw some majors,
which are the intermediate size between the small workers and the supermajors.
So as much as watching these ants going about their business was interesting to say the least,
I knew I had a problem. If this horde decided to continue advancing their trailing tentacles of
doom further, they might totally wrap around my home and even find places to enter it.
I actually waited to see if the marauder ant raid would eventually subside,
decide to move on or stop swarming my place, but for three whole days the ant trail lines just
continued to get longer and longer and longer! And so AC Family, I decided to take some action.
Let’s feed them! Here I have some sweet jelly, and I had a lot of these little cups.
I figured if I helped provide the ants what they were looking for, i.e. food, perhaps they would
decide to lessen or completely stop their raids. At least, that was the plan in my head. I mean,
either that, or the ants would do the opposite, realizing my home was a great source of food,
and completely swarm my home even more! Let’s hope that wouldn’t be the case! Whatever happens,
it would be truly an interesting experiment. Plus, I wasn’t willing to bug spray them nor call
the exterminator because these ants are native and are actually beneficial to the ecosystem.
And so AC Family, the first thing I wanted to give them was this juicy jelly cup! Are you ready guys,
let’s go. I placed the jelly cup right at their trail, and instantly the ants began to devour.
The sweet tantalizing juices began to flow from the cup,
and droves of ants came flowing in like Shoppers at Walmart on Black Friday.
So if you’re new to ants, what the ants are doing here is their filling up their social
stomachs for carrying the food back into the nest to regurgitate later to feed other members of the
colony. They gorge themselves on the sweet goods. The jelly contains a lot of great nutrients,
particularly carbohydrates which the ants need to power their various ant activities.
Man, look at that swarm completely covering the sweet liquid blob!
Though each individual ant is tiny, collectively they can process a considerable amount of food,
so with the help of thousands of ants, this jelly would be gone in just a few
hours. I had lots and lots of jelly to feed them until they decided to go away.
Alright, but of course carbs and sugars weren’t the only things these ants were after.
I knew, they also were hungry for meat. You see, protein helps ant babies grow,
their queen to produce more eggs, and just overall increase their colony’s size.
And I also happened to have lots of protein to give them. Superworms! These are common
insect food in the pet trade and I had a lot of them. I moved in to pick one out.
I chose this white one, because it had just shed its skin, hence the colour but more importantly,
I knew that its soft exoskeleton would make it easy for the ants to quickly kill it
via stings. I always feel bad watching prey I give to ants struggle, so the quicker the ants
could do the deed the better! Now AC Family, brace yourselves. This was going to get a bit gruesome!
Placing in the superworm directly on their trail. Instantly, the ants hopped on
to launch an attack and despite me precrushing the superworms head,
it began to do the death roll in attempts to get the ants off it.
The superworm flailed its body but struggling
was futile. It was no match for the ants which were pouring in by the droves now.
Let’s watch as the ants continue to swarm the superworm,
and carry it to their underground lair to devour.
The next day, I went to check up on the swarm ready to feed them some more food,
and this is what I saw. No ants. The swarm of marauders had completely disappeared.
What? My plan actually worked. I don’t know if it was a fluke (it probably was)
but the ants had made the collective decision to retreat their raid trails. I had no idea where
they went, but I did know that unlike army ants, this species was not a nomadic one, so they surely
were around somewhere underground in their secret living spaces around my home, but thankfully
they had decided not to advance further. Perhaps they got everything they were looking for.
Thank goodness! And thank goodness, I didn’t decide to pursue chemicals
to kill the ants, which is what I felt most people would’ve done, which would have not
only been bad for the environment, but millions of little ant lives wasted.
This whole experience taught me that as much as it might seem like a nuisance when ants
encroach on our living space, the ants actually have an important role to play on the planet,
which we share with them.
They are some of the top predators in the ecosystems they are from,
and are effective cleanup crews for organic materials,
like dead bugs which would otherwise fester and grow mold if just left to sit around on
the ground. How could I possibly clean out all the little things laying around
and accumulating in my drain pipes? At least, I had the marauder ants to sweep them clean for me.
To me, I knew that the ants were my neighbors, not trespassers, and the idea of sharing my
space with them was something I could manage, especially being an ant¹p¹ lover and all. If
they ever swarmed or decided to launch a raid again, I would definitely just bust out the ant
jelly and superworms to hopefully convince them to head back from the holes from whence they came.
Ants have roamed the Earth millions of years before humans ever appeared on the planet,
so technically, who's raiding who's space?
Thank you all so much for watching and supporting the ants. It’s ant love forever!