In last week’s episode… 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. I’ll be sure to update you and let you know
what my friend says in a future video! 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! Last week’s video where I proposed we’d
made a new ant discovery was a little controversial within the ant community online. The video solicited loads of mixed reactions,
some really excited about the prospect of being part of a breakthrough scientific ant
discovery, and others on the other end calling it fake and out right clickbait. This mixed reaction is totally expected, particularly
the latter reaction, as skepticism is an important and necessary part of science, which is why
research publications are peer reviewed and open to the scientific community to check
and verify. Otherwise, we’d just be believing everything
we see and read on the internet, and sharing fake news which is also not a good thing. But AC Family, have I got some really cool
news to share with you all! This week, I heard back from my myrmecologist
friend and taxonomist for Antweb.org, the global catalogue tracking all the ant species
humans have ever discovered in the world, about the mystery ant we filmed in last week’s
episode, and it turns out, he has confirmed that we, AC Family, have indeed officially
made a breakthrough scientific ant discovery. I repeat: we’ve all officially made scientific
ant history! Keep on watching until the end, because I’ll
be going over everything my myrmecologist friend said about this gorgeous mystery ant
we spotted in my yard, I asked him some questions about what our next step is now that we’ve
made the discovery, why all of this is important to science, and how rare it is to make novel
ant discoveries like ours in the world of myrmecology. But before all that, guys, there was one important
thing I had to do first! I had to head back to Antopia, because I wanted
to locate our mystery ants’ nest! Welcome everyone to Antopia, 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. As you saw in last week’s episode, 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 our Ant House is actually an amazing universe
of wildlife on its own, full of neat hidden secrets that we gradually uncover more and
more, with every expedition through its soils, our new ant discovery being such a prime example
of this unexplored wilderness! Antopia’s biological profile of living creatures
and plants is so diverse and mind-blowing, I’ve given the yard a name: Antopia. Antopia’s lush territory is full of thick
flourishing vegetation, animals, various insects, and of course tonnes and tonnes of ants that
interact with every life form in the area. Now, if you’ve been following the Antopia
series on this channel, you already know how epic things get on a microscale. In fact, there’s nothing micro at all about
the epic ant drama happening in the grass, and among the various armies of ants devouring
monitor lizards, frogs, and termites, we also discovered a Great War of the Ants that is
happening right under our noses in the great lands of Antopia. Now this Great War of the Ants is important,
which you will see in a sec, as it pertains to our mystery ant we discovered last week. To recap real quickly for those who are new,
before we finally delve into details of our ant discovery, the great Antopian War is between
two major teams of ants: Team Native Ants, i.e. the ants who’ve been living in these
lands for millions of years listed here, and Team Invasive Ants, the ants who’ve been
introduced to these lands via human activities, listed here, whose sole aim is to conquer
Antopia and kill, displace, and outcompete Team Native Ants. We here at the channel, don’t particularly
want these invasive ants around because invasive ant species are completely volatile, and can
totally disrupt and ruin an ecosystem. So to help support all creatures living in
Antopia, it’s been my mission to help support Team Native ants to win this Great Antopian
War of the Ants, and here, AC Family is where our new mystery ant comes in. I was feeding a native colony of Marauder
Ants, who by the way need a name, so please leave your VOTE by hitting LIKE in the pinned
comments below for your favourite name for the marauder ants, as suggested by you guys
in last week’s episode, and I spotted a peculiar ant crawling around nearby. It was an ant I hadn’t seen before, but
I was spellbound by its utter beauty. I gave it some sweet jelly so I could have
a closer look at it. The mystery ant had these cool long white
hairs, I’d never seen before on an ant and had only seen on these ant-like wingless wasps
called velvet wasps. But this was no velvet wasp. It had these beautiful spines on its thorax
that kind of resembled an ant cape, and two cute beady eyes on its neatly shaped head. So I allowed the ant to mosey along on its
way after filming it, and posted its photo in some ant forums online and it was tentatively
identified as the species Meranoplus bicolor. But when I checked Antweb.org to see if Meranoplus
bicolor was native to my country or if it was invasive, because if it was invasive that
would NOT be good news, to my surprise, Meranoplus bicolor was not listed as a species documented
in my country, and so this meant one of three things: This ant was in fact Meranoplus bicolor and
we were the first to discover that they actually existed in my country and were native. This ant was in fact Meranoplus bicolor and
we were the first to discover that they actually existed in my country and were invasive, or
This ant was not in fact Meranoplus bicolor, but a brand new, undocumented species of ant
that looked close to Meranoplus bicolor. So, after the video was published, and the
uproar of comments elicited a huge discussion online about the identity of this mystery
ant, I sent the episode to the one man I knew who could tell us once and for all, the truth
about our mystery ant in last week’s video. Dr. David General, top ant biologist, taxonomist,
and affiliate curator of Antweb.org and other ant identification websites specializing in
studying ants within my country. I emailed him and wrote: “Dear Dr. General, I and all my subscribers are curious to know
whether an ant we filmed this week, may be a new ant species, a new geographic sighting
of Meranoplus bicolor, or something else. The said ant is filmed in this video.” I linked the episode, and I couldn’t believe
what he wrote back! “Hello AntsCanada! Good to hear from you after such a long time! I thoroughly enjoyed your video of the ants
of Antopia, and seeing my friends Brian Fisher, Corrie Moreau, and Benjamin Blanchard in your
video was sweet, as well. The ant in question is indeed Meranoplus bicolor,
a new distributional record for the species, and a new species record. Congratulations on your great find! Now you can begin to understand the enduring
motivation of taxonomic work. It's the "high" of discovering something new,
be it a new record or a new species.” Awesome! So he felt it wasn’t a new species but it
was a new sighting of this ant in my country. He then requested I send him some specimens
to officially verify that these were indeed Meranoplus bicolor, which made me wonder the
following question: Hi Dr. General, Great news about the Meranoplus bicolor being
reported in this country for the first time. Our subscribers of the channel, the AC Family,
will be thrilled with this news! But now I’m also wondering: What are the
chances that upon examining the ant specimens we are sending you, that this ant actually
turns out to be an undiscovered ant species, and just closely resembles M. bicolor? In other words, is it at all possible this
is an undiscovered ant species or are you 100% certain it is Meranoplus bicolor based
on the video?” And his response to me was surprising: “Your ant is very close to Meranoplus bicolor,
but it may still be a surprise! I am reminded of the time (co-myrmecologist)
Gary Alpert and I dismissed an ant from Mt. Isarog as simply Tapinoma melanocephalum (a
ghost ant), a cosmopolitan pest ant. Upon closer examination under the microscope,
we found it to belong to an entirely different subfamily! The mimicry fooled two ant taxonomists! The ant turned out to be an undescribed species
of Paraparatrechina or Nylanderia.” And so, guys! There you have it! It was still possible that our ant was in
fact a new species, and Dr. General needed to have a look at specimens to review under
a microscope to identify. So, I went back to Antopia, searched high
and low for the mystery ant’s nest, found their nest, placed three workers into test
tubes and sent it to Dr. General’s laboratory for examination. I am happy to report that at the moment of
upload of this video, Dr. David General and his team are examining the specimens right
now, as you guys are watching, to verify the exact species of our mystery ant, and to let
us know if this is indeed Meranoplus bicolor or a brand new undiscovered species. I will surely let you guys know exactly what
their findings are as soon as I hear back from their team of myrmecologists and to also
let you know where they publicly publish this new ant discovery we all found in last week’s
episode! Can you imagine that we all contributed to
the growing knowledge of ant science and were a part of ant history! High five, AC Family, and great job to us! I continued to ask Dr. General about why knowing
the geographical distribution of ants is important to science and what our particular discovery
tells us, as well as how common it is to make such discoveries in myrmecology, be the discoverers
actual scientists or amatuer non-scientist ant lovers like us, to which he said that
we can derive useful information from knowing the geographic distribution of ant species. For instance, when an ant species suddenly
shows up in a place far from its known native range, then we humans can assume that it was
introduced and is invasive. However, when an ant is distributed among
neighboring countries, then we may assume that the ant is simply native, which is possibly
the case with our mystery ant we discovered if it is Meranoplus bicolor, because Meranoplus
bicolor does exist in other surrounding countries within the region of the world in which I
live. But again we won’t be able to tell until
we get full confirmation as to the species ID of the specimens Dr. General and his team
are now examining. And guys get this: Dr. General also mentioned
that the chances of discovering new ant species in my country are very high, maybe 40-50%. Can you imagine that?! Now prior to our epic ant sighting last week,
there were apparently 554 ant species known to exist in the country. And so our ant here has officially become
ant species #555 on the total number of ant species ever documented in the country. What a cool number, right guys! Now the Harvard guys, as Dr. General calls
them, estimated that there may be as many as 1000 ant species in the country. So, there are an estimated 445 ant species
still to be found, or 445/1000 equalling a 44.5% chance of finding a new ant species. That is an incredible number! He also went on to explain that the chances
are improved when searching for poorly studied nocturnal ant species, which have been harder
for biologists to spot and study. Time for us to get a black light and use it
in Antopia, AC Family! Overall, it was extremely exciting to be part
of this scientific ant breakthrough, and it was also awesome to know that ordinary curious
ant-lovers like you and I, can make valuable contributions to science! And to think, if we keep looking and exploring
Antopia, our very backyard, we have a 45-50% chance of discovering a new ant species! This is crazy, and I believe this to be the
start of a new personal mission of mine for this channel. Mark my words, AC Family, if this ant that
we filmed last week turns out to be Meranoplus bicolor, aside from the epicness of putting
it on the global scientific ant map, I declare that one of these days, we will stumble upon
a brand new ant species. This I promise you, and I will continue to
send any cool, suspect ant specimens we find in Antopia to Dr. General and his team, so
we could hopefully one day name a species of ant Acfamilius, after all of us, AC Family! But meanwhile, now that the samples were being
examined by the taxonomic pros, it was now time for us to have a closer look at our mystery
ants here. I had so many questions, like what were they
like, what did they eat, were they friendly or aggressive, outgoing or shy, and how could
we find a queen so we could try keeping these ants we made ant history with. I went back to the nest and went in with my
lens. AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode? Can you imagine that we made an ant discovery
and let’s not forget that we may have even discovered a new ant species? I’ll be sure to let you guys know what Dr.
General and his team 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 sneak peek scenes of our unidentified mystery
ant at their actual ant nest from our next episode. 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: What is your favourite feature of the
new mystery ant in today’s episode? Congratulations to Birth of Art who answered: My favourite features are her chest
which has spikes and how cute she is. Congratulations Birth of Art, 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 our mystery ant
if it turns out to be an undiscovered species? 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!
