Ant Room Tour | Spider Ants

hi guys my name is Jordan and in this antrum Torah I'm sure casing a new never-before-seen species here on this channel and there's some pretty weird-looking things they are the highly mysterious and remarkable spider ants [Music] spider ants 9 scientifically is lepto mirmix a native to Australasia and also rare to parts of South America the common name of spider in comes from the fact that well they look a lot like spiders with their extremely long skinny legs and small bodies plus they move in a very peculiar yet calculated motion very much resembling a daddy longlegs or Acela spider as they're known outside of Australia these ants are very mysterious in nature and relatively undocumented very few observations have been recorded of their habits which makes keeping and studying a colony of these guys that much more exciting this is very much uncharted territory [Music] this colony here is quite a large one currently they have a few hundred individuals present they were given to me in person by one of my viewers his only condition I just needed to make a video on them pretty good deal if you ask me the ants were originally housed in a simplistic tubs and tube setup basically just some water filled test tubes blocked up with some cotton and placed inside a large plastic storage container which had been coated with some floor one around the edges to prevent the ants from climbing out this simplistic setup is a very effective way to raise ants however it can make observing and documenting certain behaviors quite challenging at times so using some vinyl tubing I immediately touched up one of our large sized tightness which they quickly made use of [Music] within just a couple of hours they were all settled in [Music] plastic tub has now solely become their out walled area a place where the ants dispose of their garbage and forage for food usually before raising a particular species of ant I will have done lots of research on them and have spent plenty of time out observing them in the wild which usually gives me a pretty good understanding of their dietary preferences and how best to care for them but because the information on spider answers guess and finding colonies of them is quite rare at least well I'm from here in Melbourne when it came to diet I really wasn't too sure what kind of foods they'd be interested in so I've been doing lots of experimenting offering them a variety of sweets and insects their favourite so far seem to be raw honey and fresh fruits especially right babbles they're also quite keen on small insects like crickets as soon as I place one in these ants are all over them [Music] our family's spider ants rarely carry food back to their nest instead they consume what they find on the spot filling up as much as they can before returning back to their nest stomachs bulging [Music] all ants have two separate stomachs their personal stomach which they use for their own sustenance and their social stomach used for storing food to later be regurgitator to their fellow quality members in a process known as trophallaxis to communicate that an ant is hungry they'll stroke another's antennae and food is then transferred from one ants mouth to the others much like a mother bird would when feeding her chicks this method of food transfer and storage means that only a small percentage of workers need to leave the nest to forage for food allowing the Queen and young vulnerable ants to remain within the safety of their nest at all times what makes fire ants special is that they've taken this adaptation of food transfer a step further you'll probably have noticed these abnormally large looking ends with abdomens sprawling up like balloons these ants are a specialized cast within the colony known as replete s' these repeats have the sole purpose of storing vast amounts of liquid foods in water this adaptation helps the ants better survive in times of drought when food and water are hard to come by [Music] anatomically speaking these repeats originally didn't develop any differently from their regular worker counterparts in order for a spider ant replead to be formed as soon as they're closed from their people stage whilst their exoskeleton is still soft and malleable they must be rapidly filled up with liquid food or water so almost as soon as they come to life often before they've even learned how to walk they filled up via trophallaxis until they're almost bursting and then they become a replete once they're transformed they'll spend most of their time relatively immobile restricted to the deep confines of their nest where they'll be safest the workers will often come by to either fill them up or have a quick feet I found there are plates love gripping on to the ceilings of their nest where they'll hang upside down mercilessly [Music] upon seeing this behavior I decided to position the nest so it sits up vertically now the ants have much more surface area to hang from and can get a better foothold to reminds me of like a colony of bats I'm still not entirely sure why they do this I speculate it could be in order to lap up any moisture which seeps down from above shortly after I hydrate their nest with fresh water I found the rope leads very quick to consume any small droplets which pass them by as well as any condensation which accumulates over time these repeats highly valuable members of their colony as I've noticed them meticulously tended to by the workers they'll use their mouthparts to lick them clean which helps ward them off from fungal growth and lessens their chance of contracting diseases but there is one ants in this colony which is even more highly regarded the Queen but finding a spider and Queen amongst hundreds of our children isn't so easy the way most ants reproduce is by sending off reproductive male and female heirs from their nest these ants possess wings and so fly off in search of male and female counterparts from their neighboring colonies this event is known as a nuptial fight shortly after they mate the male's dial fulfilling their only purpose in life and the females usually shed their wings and seek out a good place to begin founding their colony now as a young Queen act [Music] what makes spider ants unique is that their reproductive females and queens to be our Agata genus meaning they don't have wings at all only the male's do so instead of flying off for their nuptials they disperse on foot because the Queen's are wingless they lack the prominent wing muscles and scarring seen on most other queen ant species after they've shared their wings this makes spider ant Queens especially difficult to distinguish from the regular worker ants they look almost identical the only way to tell them apart is that the Queen's bodies are ever so slightly larger and frame and if you look really closely they'll also have clearly visible or silly a cluster of small and simple eyes which are positioned on top of their heads after a whole week of observing this colony I managed to track her down here she is notice how she looks just a little bulkier than ants surrounding her her abdomen is a similar size to that of the real its but as you can see it isn't stretched out as theirs is and close up here's those Oh silly I was talking about those simple eyes which she uses to aid herself with navigation but it goes further than just anatomical features - I found this particular ant was being actively groomed by her fellow cornea members more so than any other hand I've come across so that made us stand out a little more this is quite a common habit seen in egg colonies the queen is after all the most important member of the colony without her there'd be no new generations of workers emerging and so the colony would slowly die off and collapse so it's vitally important that she's well tended to and remains clean and healthy from what I've gathered very little study has been done on spider egg Queens a captive colony with a present queen is an extremely rare occurrence as far as I'm aware this is the first ever footage captured of a living a spider anyway already I've noticed some oddities she's rather unusually active for a queen here she is seen eagerly tending to her loving most of the time queen ants simply just sits somewhere deep within their nest conserving their energy and focusing on laying more eggs so perhaps spider ant Queens are not only similar to the workers in appearance but also in behavior to something which requires a bit more study for sure although given how large this colony is and how often she moves around progress could be quite slow on that front often if I glanced away for just a second I'll have lost her and may have to spend several minutes trying to find her again if I even do it all as the colony has been growing I decided to attach up an additional nest I thought I'd try laying this one flap and keeping their original one upright just as an experiment to see which style they prefer moist so far they're not too interested in a new nest but it's still early days often ants can grow quite attached to what's familiar to them and can be very skeptical of occupying new territory I'm sure it won't be too long until they open up to the idea and start filling it up I've also offered the ants some increased warmth with this heating cable here I positioned it so it's just touching the edges of the nests so as to provide a temperature gradient throughout allowing the ants to locate themselves within their preferred temperature levels for both them and their developing brood and as you can see there is quite a lot of brood I'm expecting a huge booming population very soon most of it is in its larval stage the stage where they develop simple mouth parts and begin feeding and growing they're relatively in mobile and so are entirely reliant upon the ants to come and feed them they're fed by a trophallaxis the same process the ants use to exchange food amongst themselves the ants constantly tend to their needs making sure they're kept well nourished and pristine [Music] interestingly I've noticed the ends often like to clump the larvae together into little balls each lava possesses these tiny heads which seem to be helping them grip more easily together and strangely the workers and often the replete tend to just hang around with these clusters in their mouths with no real sign of wanting to move them anywhere I'm really not certain why they do this perhaps the speeds up relocation time in response to certain dangers where the vulnerable brood could be at risk like during an attack from a predator like this specialized ante ting echidna well perhaps a sudden flooding of rainwater and it may also be to clear up ground space in order to prevent the brood from being buried in allow for a more easy flow of and traffic and all perhaps it could make the job of feeding and organizing the brood according to their size and stage of development a little easier to all just speculation I'm curious to know what you guys think and what do you think of these spider ants in general pretty incredible right they certainly are very unique ants from their strange body structure to their wingless Queens to their massive replete and their bat like nesting behaviors I've never encountered anything like them I haven't been keeping these guys for very long either so I'm sure there's lots of new discoveries to be made I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on that progress I plan on rehousing them into a custom-designed nest fairly soon something a little larger with an increased chamber depth and surface area to allow them to hang more easily so make sure to subscribe to this channel for updates and follow me on Instagram if you want some sneak peeks on all their happenings special thanks to my supporters over on patreon thanks so much guys you're really making these videos possible and a big thanks to my top tier supporters Jon Overton Nicholas Atkins Matthew Diamond and Andy Kerr now on to the regular giveaway where you guys get a chance to win some of our specially designed ance Australia for material in last videos giveaway I asked which of the ant colony is featured here on my channel is your favorite and why personally it's really hard to just pick one but if I had to choose I think it would be the giant blintz featured in my last video they're just so incredibly different to my stance in the way that they navigate through sight the way that they're like lone wolves hunting their prey in solitude their inquisitive boisterous nature and just generally look like they're from another planet with their huge round eyes and deadly serrated mandibles although after recently acquiring and observing this corny I think these spider hands come in at a very close second much like the blends they're just so incredibly unique so the winner of the contest is Darcy Weber his favorites the trap joints he loves how weird and different they are from other ants and how fun they are to watch I'm with you on that one the speed at which these ants can bite is truly mind-blowing they're definitely up there with my favorites too so congratulations Darcy you've just won yourself one of our white or nests for next videos giveaway I'm putting two prizes up for grabs another of our white or nests and also my old camera an olympus s-said 14 it's what I shot all of my earlier videos on this channel with so it's seen its fair share of use and here's a little banged up the photo function is a little buggy but video works perfectly fine it has a super macro setting which is pretty decent allowing you to capture footage like this [Music] I've since upgraded to a DSLR camera now and so really use this one anymore so I figured why not give it to someone who will so for a chance of winning the white dog nest simply answer the following what have you found to be most fascinating about spider ants and for short at wedding my old camera just let me know why you want it and what you plan on shooting with it post your answers in the comment section below I'll pick out two separate comments and announce them as the winners in my next video as always thanks so much for watching this video and I hope you enjoyed

Channel: Jordan Dean

Views: 570,562

Rating: 4.9195809 out of 5

Keywords: ants, australia, ant keeping, entomology, spider ants, cellar spider, myrmecology, aus ants, animal room, ant farm, formicarium, formicaria, insects, australian animals, how to catch a queen ant, how to get rid of ants, queen ant, replete ant, honeypot ant, honeypot, ant documentary

Id: hitxUlgnAp8

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Palmtop_Tigrex]

They definitely look much closer to each other. However, given the popularity of Honeypot ants and their similar diet, Honeypot species are most likely the inspiration for the Altaroth.

[u/Darkalim]

I'm getting borderlands flashbacks