OMG, guys! Last week, I managed to isolate two male ants
infected with these huge facehugger mites, scary-looking beasts that I spotted clinging
onto the faces of my young pet carpenter ant colony here, that we on the channel have called
the Woodland Warriors. The next step now, was to have these scary
mites latching on to the faces of our Woodland Warriors identified, because even after all
this time since discovering these facehugger mites on my ants three weeks ago, I still
wasn’t sure if they were a danger to my ants, if they were the ones responsible for
all the dead ants appearing outside the nest, and if I should take the next steps to removing
any remaining facehugger mite-infected ants left in the colony, so that our Woodland Warriors
could have a good shot at survival. Well, AC Family, I did get to the bottom of
things, and finally got to send photos and info to my mite scientist friends Dr. Kaitlin
Campbell and Dr. Ron Ochoa in the US, and you guys won’t believe what the scientists
said about these mystery facehugger mites! Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the
BELL icon. Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! The mites turned out to be nothing at all
that I thought they would be! It was an epic discovery, guys, that I know
will blow your minds, so stay tuned until the end for the ultimate reveal as to what
these ant facehugger mites are. Are they parasitic? Do they suck the ants’ blood or do they
eat the ants’ garbage? What species are they? And yes, you’re seeing correctly: That is
a facehugger mite on our queen! Shouldn’t we be panicking? All these questions and more will be answered
in this episode. Now, I've got to say, this whole mite situation
has been causing me so much stress and anxiety lately, but you guys have been such an awesome
support for me and for our carpenter ant colony, the Woodland Warriors here, so thank you,
AC Family. I appreciate that so much! I asked you all last week what I should do
now that we managed to successfully extract a couple mite specimens and the majority of
you voted for hunting down all remaining mite-infected ants, separating them from the colony, and
having them identified by mite scientists ASAP. And so, I sought out to do what you guys voted
for, but guys, the events that transpired the night last week’s episode went up, stopped
me from doing what you all voted for me to do. Check out what happened. On the night the video went up, in preparation
to extract the final mite from our colony, I checked up on the males and turns out one
of them had died. Does this mean, the facehugger mites are indeed
parasitic and dangerous? If you’re new, I was still unsure whether
or not these facehugger mites were ant friends or enemies, because there are beneficial ant
mites that have symbiotic relationships with ants that feed on ant garbage and fungi, and
in this case, it was still possible that these facehugger mites were just hitching rides
on our ants to get around. But the fact that one of the males died could
mean that the mites do indeed suck blood and that they are dangerous parasitic mites, or
perhaps this male just died from dehydration or hunger in this snap cap vial as he’d
been in here for 10 hours without his fellow ant siblings to care for him. Hmmm… Now guys, the death of the male is not all. What was even more shocking and made this
mite mystery even more perplexing was this! Check it out, AC Family! To my surprise, in both vials, the mites had
jumped off both males and died! What? So, in just ten hours, despite having ant
blood present for them, the mites still chose to hop off the males and ended up dying. OK, so could this mean then, that these mites
aren’t blood suckers after all? Did they hop off the ants in search of ant
garbage and just died of starvation? AC Family, it was time to get to the bottom
of all this. I absolutely needed to get the ant pros to
examine the mites, and now that they were actually detached from the ants, it would
be so much easier now to film and photograph the mites up close for my mite biologist friends
to have a look at. I sought to isolate the bigger of the two
dead mites, which meant I needed to get to this mite here with the living male. I went in to get him with my tweezers. Got him. Then I shook the dead mite out of the vial
and on to my table, done... then placed the male back in. And then, AC Family, there it was. Our facehugger mite. Dr. Kaitlin mentioned the relevant distinguishing
features were on the underside of the mite, so with my tweezers I carefully flipped it
over. Man, this thing was so small. I was so scared I’d squish it. You’ll see just how small it is in a sec,
but looking at this thing for the first time from beneath was truly magnificent. In fact, I realized this was the first time
I’d ever seen the bottom of a mite in my entire life. Have a look at it, guys! Don’t you find it looks like a spider?! This was no surprise, though, because mites
are also arachnids, belonging to the class Arachnida, just like spiders, and just like
spiders, mites have 8 legs and share many of the same features, however mites branch
off into a subclass known as Acari. It was truly incredible and an amazing opportunity
to actually see the mite up close like this! Doesn’t it remind you guys of an orb weaver
spider or something? Man, I can only imagine what it must feel
like for the ants having one of these latched on to your chin! Alright, although this thing looks like a
spider, it is in fact, much, much smaller. Ready to see how small this thing is, guys? Check out the size comparison! Here is a staple. And here, the end of a toothpick. Though the mite looks huge on camera, in real
life it’s tiny, and certainly too tiny for me to distinguish its features with just my
naked eye. Thank goodness for my 4K macro camera capabilities. But now the question was, was it enough to
identify the mites, for the mite pros. I sent a few photos and this video footage
to Dr. Kaitlin and Dr. Ron, and AC Family, this is what they had to say. “Hi AntsCanada, Unfortunately the plates on the underside
of the mite are not clear enough for me to ID. Mites are tough - most IDs require slide mounting
of specimens. Ron has a high power Scanning electron microscope
at the USDA facility which can get amazing images of it if he has a specimen.” Dr. Ron also wrote back saying: “Agree with you Kaitlin, the mites need
to be mounted. Thank You.” So sadly, our video footage wasn’t enough,
and there was no other way to ID the mite for sure other than by sending it to the US
for examination in the lab. Dr. Kaitlin did however continue to provide
some very useful info. She wrote: “Here are some of my general thoughts, though
without ID, these could be wrong. I am getting the feeling that this mite is
probably not a friend, since it is rarely off of the ants and in general there aren't
a lot of known mutualist mites with ants. Most mites with ants are commensal, though
they may help reduce fungus and things in the nest area. Mesostigmatid mites like these are not likely
to be eating fungus though, they might eat nematodes. The body shape and leg arrangement reminds
me quite a bit of a Trigynaspid mite, Antennophorus, which steals food from the hosts during trophallaxis,
however, it is facing the wrong way for that and they are primarily associated with Lasius
ants. I am of the opinion that the potential benefits
of these mites are not as significant or likely and it might be best to remove the ants with
mites and knock off the mites if possible so you could return the ants to the nest.” This extremely helpful informed opinion was
enough for me. I decided I was going to go in and remove
the remaining mites from the colony, but before that, I had just a couple more follow up questions
and had something else to show Dr. Kaitlin: “OK, noted on all this” I wrote. “I will surely be sending the mites in! Last questions though, promise... Dr. Kaitlin, you said the body shape and leg
arrangement reminds you of a mite which steals food from the hosts during trophallaxis, however,
it is facing the wrong way for that and the mites known to do this are primarily associated
with Lasius ants. Dr. Kaitlin, I actually was able to film one
of the mites while the ants were exchanging food via trophallaxis and for a moment you
can actually see the mite turning around to touch the other ant. I attached some key footage I managed to take
to the email, then continued to ask: “In your opinion, is it still possible that
this mite is like a Trigynaspid mite, but instead turns around to have a steal of exchanged
food during trophallaxis? Or could this possibly be something more gruesome
like a mite that pierces the ants' throats while they feed? What are the chances that this mite is something
acarologists haven't seen or documented before?” And AC Family, her response left me speechless: “Nice video! Kleptoparasitism might be what they are doing. If they are feeding on the neck area I think
they would be less mobile, but I’m not sure on that. This is most likely a new species to science
given your location and the specificity of mites on ants. Most of the mites on ants that I’ve found
are very host specific (especially the larger Mesostigmatid mites) and since there aren’t
many people working on them they remain undescribed. Thanks! Kaitlin” AC Family, can you believe it? So, it seems these mites may not be the blood-sucking
mites we all feared. According to Dr. Kaitlin, this mite could
be stealing food being exchanged between the ants during trophallaxis, something called
kleptoparasitism. If so, this would still be considered parasitic,
but not lethal, as long as food remains in abundance and the mite populations low. But guys what excited me the most was the
fact that these mites were likely an undiscovered mite species! Oh man! AC Family, how cool is that? Obviously, I couldn’t help myself and proceeded
to ask if we could name the ant mite (blank) acfamilius and am still waiting to hear her
response back. Obviously none of this can be officially confirmed
until the mites get sent to the lab for proper physical examination. So, now going back to the remaining mites
still living in the ant colony, now I’m not so sure I want to remove them. If this is a new mite species, I realized
what an opportunity this might be, no pun intended, to observe this thing, seeing as
it likely hasn’t been studied at all! Now it makes sense why the mites jumped off
the males in just 10 hours after separation from the main colony: the mites were probably
starving and were waiting for other ants to come along to feed the males via trophallaxis. So now I ask you guys: Do you think we should
still go in and remove the last remaining mites, or do you think we should keep them
in? Let me know in the comments, guys. Also, it was super cool that we now had the
rare chance to actually give these undocumented mites a name, if not a scientific name, even
a common name. What should we call it, guys? A Klepto-Mite? A sticky fingers mite? Or how about an AC Facehugger Mite? Haha! This entire mite saga has truly been such
an eye opener, wouldn’t you say, guys? I will be sending in the dead mite specimens
to Dr. Kaitlin and Dr. Ron to officially look at and assess, but what I was more relieved
at, was that the facehugger mites weren’t likely as big of a danger as I thought they
might be. In fact, as you saw at the start of the video,
when I went back to check the colony tonight, I spotted a facehugger mite on our queen! Now ordinarily, I’d be freaking out, but
now, based on what we found out, I wasn’t so worried. I think as long as we make sure to keep an
eye on the mite population in the colony, and ensure the Woodland Warriors themselves
are nice and fat and well fed, brood healthy which they currently are (see all that brood
and future workers on the way?), and queen in top shape, then we should be good. Currently, the Woodland Warriors had huge
repletes with tonnes of stored food! That’s a lot of food for our ants and the
facehugger mites, so if the mites were stealing some, I doubt the mites would feed to the
point that it would completely kill the colony, as that would mean certain death to the mites,
as well! No ants around for trophallaxis, means no
way these klepto-feeder mites can eat, so I think for the mites, as the saying goes
“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” certainly applies and can be changed to “Don’t
kill the ants that feed you by feeding each other”! This major replete with its humongous gaster
full of predigested food was actually the same size as our queen, and my heart jumped
into my throat when I caught it moving in to feed the queen through trophallaxis with
the mite attached! Would we get to actually witness the mite
feed? Awww… not this time. Maybe it wasn’t hungry. But you better believe I’ll continue to
observe it to try to capture its feeding habits on camera! I had so many questions about these mites! If these klepto-facehuggers were indeed specific
to this species of carpenter ant, as Dr. Kaitlin said, I wonder then how they manage to infiltrate
the carpenter ant nests. The Woodland Warriors here were raised from
just this single pregnant queen ant, caught from nuptial flight then placed in an enclosed
test tube. It would have been impossible for one of the
facehuggers to get in, which only means the mite or mites were hitching a ride on her
when she was placed into the test tube! We saw how proficient the mites were on the
male ants, so perhaps mite babies or adults hitch on to the alates within the nests and
then when the alates leave to mate for their nuptial flight, maybe the mites simply hang
on the whole time. Perhaps the mites only cling on to males so
they could transfer to only the queens that manage to successfully mate and get fertilized! Maybe these mites then remain with the queen
throughout her founding period feeding from the nutritious soup her body manufactures
for her first set of young, stealing little bits of it here and there as she feeds her
brood. Wow! Isn’t science just amazing? I love the fact that we discovered all this
together, and with more answers, arrived at more questions. It also comes to show you how important it
is to keep observing nature, as even we non-scientists are valuable to the ever-growing and developing
world of science. I mean, we likely discovered a new species
of ant mite, and not to mention the three ant discoveries we made in Antopia, our ant
forest. I find, every time you guys take the time
to watch this videos, vote in the polls, help me make decisions for the ants and creatures
on this channel, and of course SUBSCRIBE to the channel to join our ever-expanding AC
Family, our collective crowd-sourcing and essentially conducting of our mini-experiments
helps us uncover more and more of nature’s best kept secrets. This knowledge of ant facehugger mite parasitism
can help researchers in an area of study that still needs plenty of curious minds like ours
to look into and discover. It’s amazing to think that this symbiotic
relationship between these facehugger ant mites and this particular species of carpenter
ant may have taken millions of years to form. Imagine being one of these mites, where your
entire life and species depends on the trophallaxis feeding habits of your hosts, these giant
carpenter ants. You only eat ant barf, and without the ants
you would die. It’s truly all mind-blowing stuff. RIP Mite 1 and Mite 2. I’m so sorry I separated you guys, but you
both helped us learn more about your species. You’ll be sent to the US now for further
study. I would like to take this opportunity to thank
our great friends Dr. Kaitlin Campbell and Dr. Ron Ochoa for their amazing help, as I
think it’s safe to say we’ve all learned tonnes about acarology, and ant acarology,
at that! I will surely let you guys know what they
say about naming the mite _(blank)_ acfamilus! Imagine we even discovered and get to name
the genus? Facehuggi acfamilius it is! Just a side note: if you would like to keep
a carpenter ant colony of your own, well, I’ve got some good news. You’re in luck, because carpenter ant nuptial
flights start in the US, Canada, and Europe this month and continue all the way until
June and even into July, depending on species and location, so keep your eyes peeled for
a queen ant! Also, be sure to pick up all your ant keeping
gear at antscanada.com. I look forward to keeping ants together with
you guys. And until the next time we visit our beloved
Woodland Warriors, and these for some odd reason, now seemingly cute facehugger mites,
thank you for watching and supporting the ants. It’s ant and mite love forever! AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode? Can you believe all this? So awesome! Be sure to follow these ongoing ant stories
by SMASHING that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified
at every upload. Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button
every single time including now. It would really mean a lot to me, guys. Thank you! AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie
for you here, if you would like to have a better look at the mites, as well as the latest
footage of our Woodland Warriors. Go check them out! And guys, did you know that it’s anting
season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you don’t even need to leave your home to start
an ant colony?! You can catch pregnant queen ants from the
safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open window starting this month! Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your
ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to you in a special package from our ant-loving
facility in the USA, so you can get the most out of your ant keeping experience. We ship worldwide and also offer full email
support if you need our help! We also have a helpful forum and ant colony
trading marketplace on the site. Visit AntsCanada.com today. And now it’s time for the AC Question of
the Week. Last week, we asked: Why was it a perfect situation that the mites
had transferred to the male ants? Congratulations to MemePrince69 who answered: It was a perfect situation for the mites to
attach to the male ants because removing the male ants would do the least harm to the colony,
as they do no work. In fact, it would allow more food to go to
the young and hungry workers. Congratulations MemePrince69, you just won
a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop! In this week’s AC Question of the Week we
ask: What would you name this new species of klepto-feeding
ant mites? Leave your answer in the comments section
and you could also win a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop! Hope you could subscribe to the channel as
we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST. Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and
SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help us keep making more. It’s ant love forever!
