Guys, imagine discovering a new species of
ant that scientists have not yet identified or catalogued, living in your own
backyard. It’s not too far fetched, as new species of ants are being discovered
and identified all the time, and the complete catalogue of ant species ever discovered
by scientists throughout the entire world, curated at Antweb.org, the global website
keeping track of all documented ant species, is constantly increasing, currently at
over 16,000 species of ants and counting. Now, surely for an ant lover like myself,
discovering a brand new ant species never before documented by science is the ultimate dream,
and I’d probably request for them to incorporate “antscanadensis” or “acfamilius” into the species
name somehow. Haha! Now I used to think such a dream of discovering a new ant species was a
little far fetched. That was until this week! Now, I thought I knew about all the ants living
in my yard, as we’ve already been filming and recording the multitude of different
ant species we’ve spotted in my yard, placing them on a bird-eye view map of my
property. But after laying out some food to help feed the native ants of my yard this week,
I was shocked to discover an ant species I didn’t recognize nor see before, finally coming out into
the open to reveal itself. It was a gorgeous ant, that I was super thrilled to see living in my
yard, and guys, I think you all will truly love what these super unique ants are and look
like! In fact, I’m going to try to find a queen of this species, and attempt to raise a
colony of them because they are just so cool! But that’s not all, guys! The biggest
shock of all, was when I did a little research on this new cool ant you’re about
to see in this video, because it turns out, we just may have made a novel ant discovery!
Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel! Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel and hit the
BELL ICON! Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! So let me start by saying I’m not a myrmecologist
nor a taxonomist, as both professions are highly involved jobs, whose work is not easy, and
requires years and years of schooling, research, and knowledge. Identifying new ants is a very
difficult process and requires specimens to be examined in a lab under a microscope, looking at
various physiological features in the specimens, then comparing notes to those made by ant
taxonomists prior, to determine if an ant specimen is anything like an ant species we’ve discovered
before, or if it’s indeed a novel or new ant species, never before discovered. Sometimes
the differences between species are so subtle, for example the shape of the ants’ genitalia or
hair distribution, that it takes a very long time to document a new species and can’t be done by
the average person, a.k.a. an ant enthusiast like me with no ant taxonomic training. If you’re
curious about how new ant species are discovered go watch our video featuring Dr. Brian Fischer,
the founder of Antweb.org, and you’ll see just how involved the process of documenting new
ants is! But sometimes, amateur ant enthusiasts do happen to stumble across novel ant discoveries
or film things never caught on camera, as we’ve seen a few times on this channel, and
so AC Family, do keep on watching until the end because I think we may have possibly stumbled
across another neat ant discovery. Possibly! Before I get into how I spotted the new ant, let
me start by quickly going over where I spotted it, i.e. my backyard, this 3,000 square meter plot
of land on which we are currently building our AC Ant House, the custom home I’m building
to house the various pet ant colonies and exotic beasts featured on this channel. I’m pleased
to share that the second floor is now complete and they’re working on the roof deck! I
can’t wait for us to move in later this year, and start a new chapter on this channel in our new Antiverse! So again, guys don’t forget to
subscribe to be part of this new adventure! But one of the cool new things, I’ve realized
over the past few months is that the yard of the Ant House is actually an entirely different
and amazing universe of wildlife on its own! It’s so amazing and exotic, I’ve given the yard
a name: Antopia. Antopia is a lush territory, full of thick flourishing vegetation, animals
like this toad, various insects like this beetle, and of course tonnes and tonnes of ants all
interacting and interdependent, in a never ending ecological dance called the food web.
Obviously, for me the most interesting are the ants living in the yard, and what’s amazing is how
they interact with every lifeform in some way. The ants are either eating other animals after they
die like this dead monitor lizard carcass, they’re hunting them like these poor termites, they’re
collecting droppings from birds, and they’re even going to war with each other! You can catch
up on all the drama of the Great Antopian War unfolding in this playlist here! It’s truly a real
life Ant Game of Thrones that will blow you away! But now onto finding this new ant species you’re
about to see in a sec! In this Great Antopian War of my yard, there are essentially two major teams
of ants. First, there’s Team Native Ants, i.e. the ants who’ve lived in Antopia for millions of
years and are endemic to the area, listed here, and then there’s Team Invasive Ants, i.e. the ant
invaders who’ve been introduced to these lands by way of human activities, that seek to
outcompete, displace, and/or kill our Native Ants. The Invasive Ants are listed here. Basically
the Antopian War, AC Family, is a battle between Team Natives vs. Team Invasives over space,
food, and resources available in Antopia. But my goal here was to help Team Native ants
beat Team Invasive Ants in this great war, because Invasive Ants can really destroy an ecosystem if
they get out of hand, as we’ve seen with fire ants that have invaded the US, and I know all you
Americans from the South know exactly what I’m talking about! Fire ants, which are originally
from South America, are terrible invaders and have been a problematic, agricultural pest
species in many countries. So in order to beat Team Invasives, and help deter this Invasive
Ant movement, I had decided to start feeding all the Native Ant colonies in my yard right
at their nests, at every possible opportunity. If Team Native Ants was strong and properly
nourished, they had a better chance at beating Team Invasive ants, and so this, AC Family
was how I came to spot the new ant species. AC Family, meet Carebara diversa, also known
as the great Marauder Ants of Team Natives. I was pleased to come across a neat trail of them
at one location of the yard. AC Family, I’ve been trying to think of a name for them. We used to
own this species and I loved the name you guys suggested and voted for: the Titans, due to their
massive supermajors that also patrol the grounds with the colony. What should we name this wild
colony of Marauder Ants, guys? Leave your name suggestions in the comments and I’ll choose my top
5 favourites for us to vote on in a future video. You may notice the ants transporting small
pieces of white stuff. You’re about to see what these white pieces are in a second. The
presence of a small major signals that the ants had found food somewhere along this
trail, and indeed they did, thanks to me! I gave them a piece of chicken
bone to feast on. As you can see, they took to the food offering quite well and had
already stripped most of the meat off and were at this point breaking off pieces of cartilage
to take back home. I loved watching the ants carving into the chicken bone, as it felt good
that they were receiving some great nourishment. Just look at how efficient they
are at bringing home the chicken! I watched them lug huge chunks of chicken
meat cooperatively back to the nest! I also placed down some sweet jelly for
them to feast on, which they proceeded to pile grains of dirt on in order to make it less
sticky so they could feed from it more safely. But while I was watching
the Marauder ants feasting, a movement on the ground nearby caught my eye. When I saw the peculiar heart shape of its gaster,
I knew this was something I hadn’t seen before. Then it stopped to clean itself
allowing me to get a better look at it. Wow! Ok now I knew for sure I’d
never seen an ant like this! I watched as it crawled around on the ground
in search of some food. What a spectacular ant! It’s gaster was quite fuzzy and had a
unique look, not to mention a cool colour! I placed down some sweet jelly to feed
it and and it took to my gift graciously. As it sipped from the sweet fluid of the jelly, I was able to take a much better look at it.
Check her out, AC Family! Isn’t she gorgeous? First and foremost, check out the
white fuzzy hair on her gaster, legs, and body. Her thorax was adorned with a pair of
large spines as well as other smaller spines, and a cute head with round beady eyes made her
one of the most adorable ants I’ve ever seen. Now normally when I see a heart-shaped gaster
like this, I think of the genus Crematogaster which is very common throughout the world, but she
was not a Crematogaster. She was something else. After she had her fill of sweet
jelly she was off on her way to carry the sweet goods to her colony
somewhere off in the distance. What a cutie! Ok now, AC Family, here’s where things got
pretty crazy! So, after this sighting, I went home and posted in some ant forums online with
her photo, hoping for a species identification, and turns out she was identified tentatively
as an ant species called Meranoplus bicolor. So neat! I had heard the name
before but had never seen the ant! But when I tried looking up the species on
Antweb.org, to check if the ant was a member of Team Natives or Team Invasives, I was shocked
to discover that Meranoplus bicolor was not one of the two Meranoplus ant species
listed as being sighted in my country. The only two Meranoplus species of ants found
where I live were Meranoplus malaysianus and Meranoplus biliran, both of which did
not look like our ant we saw in Antopia. Woah wait a minute! So AC Family,
this meant one of three possibilities: First possibility was that this
ant was indeed Meranoplus bicolor, and that they were indeed native to my country.
This would be an example of a novel discovery, as this hasn’t been documented
before, which would be truly exciting! Second possibility, was this ant was indeed
Meranoplus bicolor and that they were introduced to my country making them part of Team
Invasives, which would also be a novel discovery, because again Meranoplus bicolor isn’t
listed as a species found in my country. Or third, and probably the most exciting
possibility, is that this ant we spotted was not Meranoplus bicolor but rather a
brand new but closely related species, never before documented, which again would of
course be a novel discovery. If this was the case, I’m kind of kicking myself for not collecting the
specimen for sending to a lab for examination. But, it was pretty awesome to
know that our footage of this ant can be used to start the conversation as to
what this mystery ant is, if it’s native, and if it’s a brand new ant discovery
that we the AC Family made together. I will send this video to an ant taxonomist
friend of mine, who studies, identifies, curates, and gives names to new ant species
all the time for Antweb.org in my country, and ask him for his expert opinion on what he
thinks this ant is. If it’s worth investigating, at least we know they’re living in Antopia and
I can take him and his team of taxonomists to our yard, if they would like to hunt down and
inspect our mystery ant in question further. I personally am hoping for option three because
again, I’d love for the world’s newest and cute, fuzzy species of ant to be named Meranoplus
acfamilius, what do you guys say? It’s got a ring to it, right? I’ll be sure to update you and let
you know what my friend says in a future video! Overall, today was pretty incredible. It was
another prime example of why the world needs curious minds like ours, and that even
if we aren’t scientists by profession, and just ordinary ant keepers and hobbyists,
the scientific world still needs us and places great value in our ant-loving endeavors. Dr. Brian
Fischer in his video with us specifically talked about how we backyard amateur myrmecologists
are just as important to myrmecology, and we can all literally send ant
specimens in laboratory-grade alcohol to the California Academy of Sciences
for his team to identify and catalogue. And speaking of backyard amateur myrmecologists,
you won’t believe it, but the great Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, along with his
7 yr old son Nate are also AC Family, and sent me this incredible artwork drawing of
Homer covered in fire ants! Isn’t that amazing, guys?! Turns out, Nate has many ant
colonies in test tubes and in AC ant farms, and already knows so much about ants including
scientific names, identifying ant genera, and how to care for them! I have no doubt
in my mind, there are many of you out there, like Matt and Nate who are hardcore ant-lovers,
and this brings me such great hope for the future of myrmecology. It’s exactly why myrmecologists
are constantly looking for ways to connect and communicate with the public and collaborate
on scientific initiatives, like ant classes and workshops. It warms my heart to know
that you guys enjoy taking the time in your day to watch these videos and have a closer
look at the secret, amazing lives of ants, that most of the world usually doesn’t see or know
about. On behalf of the ants, thank you for that! Until our next eye-opening visit to Antopia,
let’s cross our fingers guys and hope for Meranoplus acfamilius becoming a real
species! Haha! Thank you for watching and supporting the ants. It’s ant love forever! AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode? Can you
imagine if we discovered a new ant species? I’ll be sure to let you guys know what I find out, so
if you haven’t yet do SMASH 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 watch random scenes of the Carebara diversa feeding frenzy and
our new mystery ant species. Go check them out! And guys, 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: Name one of the plants
growing in the Ember Islands? Congratulations to Isaac Tam who answered: Rockweed Congratulations Isaac Tam, you just won a free
Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop! In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask: What is your favourite feature of the
new mystery ant in today’s episode? 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!
It's such an interesting looking ant too!