(dramatic music plays) - I am Coyote Peterson,
and I'm about to enter the box of pain with 50 soldier leafcutter ants.
(camera clicks) Ow ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
ooh ooh ooh yes, ow, okay. I'm Coyote Peterson, and today, (gentle upbeat music plays)
I'm taking you on a journey into one of the most
fascinating animal societies on the planet, the realm
of leafcutter ants. We're gonna find out why
these animals are so special, test just how strong they are, and, ultimately, put my hand into a box with 50 angry soldier ants to find out just how razor
sharp their jaws really are. But before we can get to
the extreme entertainment, first, we gotta find the nest, and to help us with that mission is my good friend and
entomologist, Jim Cordoba. - Hey.
- Ready to piss off some ants? - Absolutely, all right, so let's go. - Let the journey begin. Today, we'll be searching for ants at the Rio Nuevo Nature Reserve. Acquired and managed by
the BioSur Foundation, this 135-acre expanse of
critical riparian rainforest protects a myriad of iconic wildlife, such as but not limited to, four species of monkeys, five species of wild cats, over 200 bird species, and seemingly countless
reptiles and amphibians. However, what's most impressive are the thousands of insects, including 450 species
of diurnal butterflies. Believe me, this place is wild. - [Jim] The area that you are is one of the most special
areas across the planet. - [Coyote] First featured on
the Brave Wilderness Channel in 2023, Jim Cordoba needs no new introduction. - What? This is insane is insane, Coyote. It's insane.
- Holy cow. But since we adore him so much, let's brag about our bug loving friend. Conservationist, entomologist, wilderness guide, community leader, and all around amazing human being. - Thank you.
- Jim is the future of rainforest conservation and a beating heart of the OSA Peninsula. So I noticed you're looking
up and down for ants 'cause they can be in both places, right? - [Jim] Exactly;
basically, Coyote, this is the most complex social
insect in our planet. So they behave, the entire nest, behave as one single animal. They develop different roles as our cells are doing in our bodies, or our organs are doing in our body. - [Coyote] Hey, leafcutters right there. - [Jim] Yes, this is where
our adventure begins. (dramatic music plays)
- There they are, wow. Look at that, they are all the way up that tree.
(video whooshes to next scene) (gentle music plays)
Despite their name, leafcutter ant, these intelligent insects
do not actually feast on the leaves they
cultivate from the canopy, but rather, they're delivering these jagged chlorophyll-rich goodies to an elaborate underground fungus. That's right. Leafcutter ants are the
world's most skilled mushroom farmers. It's a complex mutualistic relationship that is most easily described like this. When starting a colony,
the queen ant places a piece of mushroom in her den. The mushroom begins to grow while she lays her first brood of eggs. Upon hatching, the larva feed on the mushroom, metamorphosize into ants, and then find themselves chemically connected
(connections chirp) to both the host mushroom and their queen. That's when the real work begins. All day, every day, a caste
system of ants farm leaves from the rainforest canopy and return to the colony
to feed the fungus. As the fungus grows and
expands underground, so, too, does the ant colony. The queen lays more eggs, larva feed, metamorphosize, and repeat. So what began with a single queen and a fragment of mushroom grows and grows and grows year after year after year, and in time, is the formation
(graphic beeps) of a massive underground fungal organism that is intricately managed
by millions of working ants. The complex societal
structure of leafcutter ants is so advanced that they
have been able to survive two mass extinctions.
(dramatic music plays) How trippy is that? - [Jim] So on their paths is where (claps hands) they can leave a lot of information. So now that you are touching
this guy, for example, this one will leave
information with pheromones that will tell the other
ones that are coming down that there is something going on here. So I want to do experiment so you can see how we can interfere with
that communication system that they have.
- All right, go for it. - Okay. So can I get my saliva?
(vinyl record scratches) - You gonna spit on the tree? - Yep.
- Yeah, spit on it. - Okay.
- Knock yourself out. Oh, you're spitting in your fingers first. - [Jim] Just a normal day
inside of the rainforest. - [Coyote] Yeah, so you
are blocking their path - Correct.
- With your spit. - Yep.
- And you're essentially intercepting their pheromones
with your pheromones. - Yep.
- Look at that. You're creating a roadblock. - (laughs) Now we have
a traffic jam. (laughs) - Yeah. It's insane.
- Wow. - [Jim] So this is where
we can really prove that the way of communication
of them is quite complex. - [Coyote] So how big of a
traffic jam is going to form here before they figure out
how to just go around it? I mean, this is not a
very big swatch of saliva. - [Jim] There is explorer
one that eventually will figure out exactly where is the rest of the line, you know? So he gonna need to explore
around and leave once again, you know, the pheromones for
the workers can keep going in their direction.
- So the explorers are laying the trail for the workers to follow? - Exactly.
- That is fascinating. So if we follow the leaf trail, it will eventually lead us to the nest. - Totally, all right?
- All right. - (claps hands) Let's go.
- Let's follow the ants. (gentle upbeat music plays) In total, the leafcutter ant caste system is made up of 12 unique designs, but we're only going to
call out the most relevant. Aside from the queen, the
largest ants are known as majors. Also known as soldier ants,
they're forced to be respected and guard the colony entry. They can be extremely aggressive and have a razor sharp bite. Next in line are the mediae. Most commonly seen in long
trails on the rainforest floor, it's these ants who cut
the leaves and carry them to the nest. Minors are slightly
smaller than the mediae and work as a patrol force
to ensure the leaf carriers return home safely. Specializing in chemical logistics, they also use pheromones
to ensure the route of ant traffic. And finally, the smallest
of them all, are the minims, some of whom ride on leaves
to nibble them clean of wax while others remain in
the nest to maintain the fungus gardens and
care for the ant broods. All right, Jim, I see we're
coming up to a sign here that has a leafcutter ant on it. I'm thinking this is
our final destination. - [Jim] Yes, exactly, so right over here, (dramatic upbeat music plays)
under this ground, is a big megalopolis with around 2.5 millions of individuals. - [Coyote] 2.5 million ants are underneath us right now? - Correct.
- These little piles here, are those the individual
mounds that they live in? - [Jim] Yep, exactly,
so right in the center, probably, will be the queen, you know, and the queen develop, you know, a really complex architecture. - [Coyote] And it's important
for you guys to understand there is one single queen
that can live, I read this, 25 years. - Correct.
- And she is the single genesis point of this entire civilization. - Exactly.
- I like how you call it a megalopolis.
- It's a big megalopolis underground, so probably,
we have more ants right over here than humans
in Costa Rica. (laughs) - That is wild.
- And how many eggs can she lay in her lifetime? - [Jim] Just one single
female can give birth to around 320 millions of, you know, of eggs
in just one single nest. And if the queen die, the entire civilization will die, too. - Like you just, boom, queen's dead, they all just die instantly?
- They will die. Whoa.
- They will get confused, and then they don't know
what they need to do. And then all of them, they will die. - [Coyote] When it comes to the queen, there is no way that we
will ever see the queen, you would have to dig her out of there, and the odds of ever finding her are virtually impossible, but she's being protected
by the soldier ants, which are the target that we are after. (dramatic music plays)
We wanna determine how strong a soldier ant is, and then how angry the soldier ant gets once taken away from
the area it's protecting so my hand can go into the box of pain, and we can get down to the entertainment, but first, we gotta find those soldiers. We gotta catch those soldiers. So how do we do that? 'Cause I don't see any ants here. - [Jim] We need to start
making some vibrations because there are a lot of
tunnels underground right now. So just--
- So they know we're here - Yes, exactly.
- Okay, so for our strength test, we
just need a single one. We don't want all the
ant spilling out yet. That's when we're gonna
actually collect them for the box of pain, but the strength test begins with a single ant.
- All right. Okay?
- You've got a soldier here and ready.
- I think so, yes. Look at that.
- Wow, it's a big ant. - It's a giant ant, yes. Coyote, do you have something
that this animal can hold? - [Coyote] As a matter of fact, I do. I have
- Amazing. - the world's toughest
wallet in my backpack. - Amazing.
- It's called the Ridge. And you think that this
ant can bite onto that and hold it.
- Okay, let me try it. Do you wanna see with your own eyes? - Yep.
- Let's try it. We are in front of one
of the stronger animals of our planet, so it doesn't surprise me that this animal can
really hold with his jaws the entire wallet you have give me. Look at that. - Wow.
- Look at that. It's holding the entire
wallet just with his jaws. - [Coyote] That is crazy. Now, the other day, Jim
told me that this would be the equivalent of a human being holding a bus, a school bus, with their teeth while being
dangled from their legs. - [Jim] (laughs) Coyote, this
ant is destroying your wallet. - It's trying to destroy my
wallet, and that's actually a great opportunity for
me to tell you guys about today's sponsor, Ridge, the
toughest wallet on the planet. Now, they sent me a few of
these and said, "Coyote, "do you think you can destroy
our indestructible wallet?" I said, "I'm sure willing to
try," and here's what we did. (upbeat music plays)
Tougher than a rock? Sure is. Tougher than a truck? (engine revs) Better believe it. Tougher than teeth? (grunts) (exhales heavily) Yeah. I know, how about a
50-foot drop onto rocks? Oops. Ho ho.
(water trickles) Yep, the Ridge wallet. Tougher than tough. Not impressed? Try for yourself because
Ridge will give you a 99-day free trial to use their wallet, And if you're convinced,
this bad boy comes with a lifetime warranty. And for all those adventure dads, right now, you can save
up to 40% using my link, ridge.com/bravewilderness,
through June 15th. It's the perfect gift
for this Father's Day that will last a lifetime. Okay, back to the ant mound. Now is the part where we're
going to be collecting 50 soldier leafcutter ants,
and ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the Bug Sucker 7500.
(chime plays) And this has an extendable nose, which will allow us to safely and easily vacuum up our soldier ants. It's got a nice little cloth inside, so we'll catch them, and
then we'll transfer them to the box of pain. And you know a special
ant dance, don't you? - [Jim] Of course, so let
me make some vibrations. - Okay.
(feet stomp) - Okay, they're coming. They're coming, all right.
- Awesome, here we go. (Bug Sucker whirs)
(upbeat music plays) Ah, it's working like a charm. (Jim laughs)
Gotcha. Are you keeping count, Jim?
- Yeah. (Bug Sucker whirs) I think that we have enough.
- Oh, yeah, there's a ton of 'em in there. And the next step is to get these into
(Bug Sucker whirs) the box of pain and the experiment heads into its third level.
(gentle upbeat music plays) There it is. The box of pain filled with 50 soldier leafcutter ants, and before we put my hand inside the box, Jim, first I wanna talk about insects. Bugs, including these ants,
are in trouble right now. - Yes, absolutely, Coyote. We are in a critical
situation in our planet. We are in the middle of
the sixth mass extinction. So even insects are disappearing. - [Coyote] If there's one
thing that I really took away from the last time we worked together, it's when you said that
if insects went extinct, humans would effectively go extinct. - [Jim] Yes, indeed. Over 40% of the biomass
in Costa Rica of insects are gone already. We cannot deny that there is a big problem in conservation of this group of animals. - [Coyote] And what are
you doing specifically here at your reserve to prevent
this next mass extinction? - [Jim] Well, we have created
Rio Nuevo Nature Reserve, where we are protecting
375 acres of rainforest next to Corcovado National Park to preserve the habitats of
the most endangered species of our country.
- You guys are the future of the Osa Peninsula.
- Thank you, dude. - It's so exciting. But with that said, I
think it's time to get into the entertainment. Jim, do you think that
they're going to bite me, latch on and lacerate a bunch
of little cuts in my hand? - Yeah, for sure. So when you're going to start
putting your hand inside, they're going to release (dramatic upbeat music plays)
a pheromone that will alert all of them, and they're going to
start getting really mad. So good luck. (pats shoulder) We need to sacrifice
you once again. (laughs) - Well, I am more than
happy to sacrifice my hand in the name of conservation, so hopefully you guys learned
something fantastic today. I'm gonna get the box situated. I put a little sleeve on the outside. - I have a question.
- Yeah? - Do you feel any concern?
- I have no idea what to expect, except for the fact that I know that those razor sharp jaws are going to turn my hands into mincemeat. So enough procrastinating at this point. It's time to get bitten by ants. - All right.
(ominous music plays) - I'm Coyote Peterson, and I'm about to enter the box of pain with 50 soldier leafcutter ants. Here we go, one, two, three.
(box clatters) - All right.
- It's not gonna happen as fast as yellowjackets, but my hand is in. All right, Jim, so you
are pretty confident that they are going to attack and start biting.
- Yep, of course. Just move your fingers
a little bit, you know, start creating that movement.
- Any sort of vibrations? - [Jim] Uh-huh, they're
making the vibrations so they can feel your hand.
- Oh, no, look at 'em. They're coming towards me.
- Yep. A little bit more stronger. A little bit more stronger.
(fingers tap) Mm-hm.
- I'm not seeing any bites yet. My hand is certainly fogging
up the inside of the box. - Hm, interesting. - Mm-hm-hm.
- Mm-hm. - [Coyote] Look what we have learned here. The ants are extremely aggressive when they're around their mound. But once in a box, they have no interest in, oh, oh, ow, one one of 'em is biting me (Jim laughs)
on the underside of my thumb. One bite, ah, no, it kinda let go. It just tested me and then let go.
- Just wait. No, it still is there. It's trying to find a place.
- So you think if that one bites me, that it's going
to, oh, it's going in between my fingers. Oh, that could be really bad. No, you're just hanging out. - They're really calm.
- Absolutely nothing. They're extremely calm.
- Mm-hm. - [Coyote] So if I placed
my hand right at the front of the mound, they would
probably attack nonstop. - For sure.
- So do you think if we took these ants back where we
were going to release them, put them right on top of the mound, and then I put my hand there,
we'd get a different result? - Let's try to do that experiment. - [Coyote] Now, Jim, what I need you to do is your ant dance. I'm going to place my hand right on the edge of the mound, and we'll see if, when they spill out, they target my hand as the enemy. - So I start dancing? - Start dancing, buddy.
(feet stomp) (ominous upbeat music plays) - Just wait. - Yeah, they're coming,
they're coming, they're coming. They're coming.
- Oh, man, the little ones are getting me, too. Ow. Yeah, ow ow ow ow. Boy, yep, okay, this is gettin' the job done. Ooh gee gee gee gee gee
gee geez yes ow, okay. Here's what we know, oh, okay, Jim, get some of 'em
off, get some of 'em off. - Oh, no, you can see the--
- Yeah, we gotta pull 'em off. Yeah, I know, pull 'em off, pull 'em off. - [Jim] Oh, no, they're
getting on me, too. (laughs) Ah wah wah wah wah.
- Yeah, that's an explosion. That's an explosion right there. - Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
- (screams out) Oh, wow, yeah, they're really digging in deep. - Oh no.
- Okay, I would say, let's, ah, get these ones, get these ones. - [Jim] All right, all right. (Coyote exhales loudly)
Are you okay? - [Coyote] Mm-hm. Okay, now I'm gonna try to keep my hand hidden because I don't wanna show
this much blood on camera. Wow, my hand is spilling
out blood right now. That was intense very quickly. So you can see how
different the results are if you agitate the nest, and the soldiers recognize
you as the invader. Placing the ants inside of the box, we thought this was the
result we were gonna get. - It's so interesting, right?
- But we did not. Oh, yeah, man, my hand is messed up. - Oh, great.
- Let me analyze, let me analyze. I actually have something in my bag. Oh, oh, Jim, it's bad. (laughs) - (laughs) Worse than you thought? - I mean, there's,
- Oh, gosh. - There's a lot.
- And still, do you have blood on the hands?
- Yeah, yeah. So I've got the new Brave Wilderness viper shirt that's gonna be available in
the Brave Wilderness Store very soon. I'm gonna keep my hand which,
wow, it is bleeding a lot, covered up. Jim, let's back away from the
the mound for just a second and bring ourselves to a close. Wow. - That was intense.
- That was intense. So much faster than I
thought it was going to be. Is there one on my neck?
- Yep. - Oh, thank you.
(Jim claps hands) Holy cow, and that hurts. Understanding the power
(ominous music plays) behind the bite in these ants, - Of course.
- It's unreal. - [Jim] It's unreal; they
are really destructive, you know, so they can
modify an entire hectare around the forest so they can create a huge gap and even destroy entire trees. So yeah, it doesn't
surprise me that you almost, you destroyed your hand. (laughs) - You know what's funny, Jim,
is I was going to give myself the challenge of 30 seconds in the mound. When I did the yellowjacket box, I lasted for about three seconds. My hand got stuck in the box. Help, help, help.
- You got it? - [Coyote] And I ended up
being in there for 10 seconds. This was a bad idea. Bad idea, bad idea. I was probably less than 10 seconds - Probably, yes.
- With my hand in that. I mean, so much pain, and
think about the nerve endings that you have in your fingers. So quickly did I need to pull my hand away from that mound.
- Sure. - And what's interesting,
too, is that you think about any possible predator coming in, like (indistinct) to sniff
around the front of this and say, "Hey, is this
a place to get a meal?" Absolutely not; you get
those on your snout, it's game over.
- Yeah, exactly. So I actually never seen a predator that actually attacked
directly the leafcutter ants in Costa Rica, except for army ants are really specialized species that go behind to this group of ants. But after them, I haven't
seen something else really attack them. - Well, you know why that is, Jim? Because you have to be dumb
enough to put your hand into a mound of soldier ants.
(Jim laughs) But thank you so much
for today's adventure. We learned an incredible amount when it comes to the society of these ants and how we can ultimately learn
from this very cool insect. I'm Coyote Peterson. Be brave.
- Stay wild. - We'll see you on the next adventure. Oh, time to clean up my hand.
(upbeat music plays) Upon the ideation of this episode, we knew that one thing had to happen: me getting bitten by leafcutter ants. And while that was plenty entertaining, I hope you gained a newfound fascination and really absorbed some insight for this complex world
of intelligent insects. In a time where there is
so much chaos in the world, I think we can learn quite
a bit from leafcutter ants. Patient behavior, dedicated work ethics, and the ability to function in harmony with the planet has
allowed these alien looking earthbound inhabitants to survive for hundreds of millions of years. There's definitely something
to be said for that, and we would be wise to pay attention. If you're inspired to learn more or feel emboldened to visit Rio Nuevo where you can see this
massive colony in the wild, make sure to visit the
BioSur Foundation website. Drop Jim a line. Tell him Coyote sent you,
and book your visit today. Your presence will help
us continue to protect the untamed wilderness of
Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula. (surf roars)
(upbeat music plays) (graphic thuds into view)
(wolf howls)
