Best Of Ants | BBC Earth

[Music] for the founding queen sharing her nest with all these rivals seems like madness but the economics of desert survival is a numbers game and for the moment at least this communal life is the key to her future each Queen now lays her first batch of tiny eggs each no bigger than a pinhead many new nests contain two or three Queens limiting the initial brood to less than 100 eggs but these 10 Queens have produced well over 300 eggs and when they hatch the colony will become an instant superpower for the founding Queen this is the main advantage to taking in lodgers [Music] if the eggs are not kept clean and coated with antibiotic saliva they would quickly be smothered by fungi and rot away the eggs soon hatch fed by the Queens the voracious larvae grow quickly and then pupate a few weeks after the eggs were laid the first tiny pail workers emerge from these silky cocoons all and workers are female and sterile unable to reproduce themselves their sole purpose in life is to serve the Queens they darken as their bodies become harder and then they are ready to take up their duties some stay underground tending to the Queens and to the remaining brood others head for the surface for a first look at their strange new world in the Royal chamber the queen has yet to restart her normal duties before her journey she stopped egg production in order to slim down and make traveling easier now like a virgin queen she produces a special scent that attracts winged male ants who fly in from other nests the male is also enormous on a similar scale to the queen the sense she produces are irresistible just a few molecules we'll grab a male's attention he searches for a way into the nest but a guard patrollers found him and at first the other ants see em as food he's actually in mortal danger the army smothers him as if he were prey but their intentions falter he also produces cents to demonstrate his fitness to be consort if he passes master he'll they accepted if he doesn't he'll be for the job they tried to clip his wings so he'll fit through the nest entrance but he cooperates using spikes at the end of his abdomen he pulls one of himself nothing is wasted even a wing has some nutritional value the rest of the workers take him into the nest he has their support at least for the time being he's on probation until he actually mates with the Queen he could still be attacked another wing is removed [Music] he'll soon be presentable for his audience with the Queen it's day five in the new territory there's no nuptial flight instead the Queen's new consort is glided directly to the Royal chamber he's not the first consort to the Queen and he probably won't be the last driver and Queens are for ants and usually promiscuous he'll be one of many suitors shield entertain during her lifetime his job done he retires from the Royal chamber and dies a short but productive life for he'll father several million new ants with hungry mouths slugs are fair game for driver ants they don't run away the first ant makes contact and then another the others come running the slug tries to sit out the attack there are so many ants a victim uses the only escape route left to it the ants fall too they often use this unconventional way to get down from the trees but the unfortunate slug has fallen from the frying pan into the fire an awful lot of ants are milling about down here they smother their prey but the slug has a trick up its sleeve it may be slow but it's well protected it's entire body is covered in a thick and noxious slime it's so gluttonous that once their jaws are in they can't get them out other ants seem to give a helping hand but this one is firmly stuck try as she might she just can't get away [Music] for some it's not just their jaws that attract [Music] which is almost free then something remarkable happens some of the workers begin to bring particles of soil and place them on the slug in this way the slime is soaked up like ink on blotting paper gradually the slug disappears under a writhing mass of earth and ants with its protective coat neutralized the ants attacked the slug underneath slowly - the victim is sliced up by pooling their resources the Queens have survived their first major challenge but this coalition can't last tensions are already on the rise of the Queens jostle for position within the royal court the weaker crouched submissively before the more dominant including the founding Queen so begins the delicate maneuvering that will soon take on a deadly significance those at the bottom of the hierarchy have little chance of surviving the coming trials another struggle for control is also beginning above-ground the corral nest is not the only one in Horseshoe Canyon the desert floor is littered with similar sized colonies and there's not enough room for all of them now the darker side of the honey ants emerges it's time for the corral colony to mount a preemptive strike on its nearest neighbors this killing spree continues through the summer until the corral colony has eliminated all the other new nests in their immediate neighborhood the foundations of the Empire have been laid underground two events have taken a darker turn one of the Queen's lies dead in the Royal chamber it's not clear why but the workers have started singling out the weaker Queens for special attention at first it's all very subtle one isn't fed so often or cleaned as diligently but then the workers start bullying and harassing their chosen victim finally it spills over into direct attack and the workers tear the chosen queen to pieces nothing can go to waste even a royal caucus workers carry hungry larvae over to feast on the dead Queen including many that must have been our own offspring [Music] as the week's pass the revolution continues only the most dominant Royals seem immune to attack they just watch and wait as the workers go about their gruesome business by late summer the corral tanks contain the only standing water the kilometers around the canyons more mobile insects are drawn to this one last oasis for those able to travel this water is a lifesaver [Music] [Music] bees and wasps can carry the water back to their distant nests but this tiny pool of water lies just beyond the boundary of the corral colonies territory [Music] but no end in sight such desperate times call for desperate measures as the search widens a small group of Corral workers head towards the trough this is unfamiliar ground for them they are heading toward disaster near the trough they stumble across other honey ants and then a nest entrance it's only 40 meters from the corral colony that that's been enough to keep these two nests in mutual ignorance for all these years these new honey ants are unlike any the Corral workers have encountered before they are big and aggressive instead of backing down they meet the challenge head-on and the encounter begins to escalate for the first time in its history the Corral colony may have met its match sensing the worst the Corral workers begin to fall back toward their own nest the trough workers go on the offensive the retreat quickly turns into a rout stragglers are picked off the fight is carried right to the entrance of the corral colony even here on their own doorstep they can't hold their ground the attacking trough workers drive on into the nest as news of the attack reaches the corral Queen she withdraws to the deepest chambers her entourage of nurses in tow carrying the valuable brood the battle spreads down into the tunnels slowly inexorably it spreads down through the shafts towards the deeper part of the nest [Music] the repeats are slaughtered or dragged away to be eaten later some dead workers are carried off for processing the invaders take everything from eggs to newborns [Music] many are eaten where they fall [Music] they empty chamber after chamber [Music] finally the invaders overcome the last resistance and breakthrough into the Royal bunker the Corral Queen and her broods are trapped and completely helpless held by each leg the queen is on the rack first stretched then dismembered it is a gruesome and ignominious end for this once great ruler [Music] in just a few hours the corral colony has been annihilated the nest emptied too late for the corral colony the drought finally breaks a great storm heralded the start of the corral Queens story and now eight years later another marks its brutal end but somewhere out in the desert the Queen's royal daughters are fighting their own battles continuing her dynasty [Music]

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 1,573,420

Rating: 4.8569283 out of 5

Keywords: top 5 ant moments bbc earth, bbc earth, queen ant mating season ant attack bbc earth, bbc, bbcearth, empire of the desert ants bbc earth, male ant pulls off own wing to mate with queen, empire of the desert ants, ants rip queens legs off, driver ants eat slug alive, ant queens forge an empire empire of the desert ants bbc earth, male ant pulls off own wing to mate with queen natural world ant attack bbc earth, wildlife documentary 2019, Nature documentary 2019 hd

Id: qu0HN9rYtIw

Length: 20min 45sec (1245 seconds)

Published: Sat May 23 2020