OMG! Once again, I can't believe what I managed
to film this week. What do you do when your friend who owns a
pet store calls you up and says he's got a new animal corpse to give you? Well, logically, you take it of course, and
offer it as a gift to your massive pet fire ant colony! Meet the Fire Nation, undoubtedly my most
ravenous, meat-hungry, prolific, and aggressive ant colony of my Ant Room. Time and time again, they've torn up and eaten
every single animal I've placed into their territories: a hamster, a cockroach Christmas
Tree, a bird-eater tarantula, a chicken head, and even a mouse! And so, AC Family, this week, next in line
for them to devour was something they'd never before had, and what they ended up doing to
it, will leave your jaw on the floor, just as it did mine! You'll see exactly what I mean at the end
of this video! Brace yourselves, everyone, as we enter the
hot Selva de Fuego, the epic paludarium kingdom of the Fire Nation fire ants, to place some
dragon meat into the fire, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel! Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the
BELL icon. Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! Welcome everyone to the Selva de Fuego, the
Amazon river jungle territories and long term home of my fire ant colony called the Fire
Nation. The Fire Nation, a governing colony of red
tropical fire ants, whose species is known to biologists as Solenopsis geminata, is not
one to play around, particularly on this special night when they decided to have a full out
nuptial flight in their enclosure. Virgin queens and males emerge from the nest
in hopes to breed and start new fire ant colonies of their own. We saw in a previous video how they attempted
to fly and mate, but thankfully weren't actually mating for some reason, perhaps because conditions
weren't right or they naturally don't mate with their own siblings. Thank goodness, though because I don't know
what I'd do if more colonies of Fire Ants, born from the Fire Nation here, began to spring
up in my home. I'd literally probably end up being eaten
alive, something many of you have either joked about or expressed legit fears of in the comments! Fire ants, which hail from the tropical jungles
of South America happen to be top predators in the ecosystems they are part of, as well
as very important scavengers. They devour insects, other invertebrates,
the unlucky rodent and bird. Any person who's had the misfortune of being
stung by these ants, like yours truly every single time I work around them, can testify
that they are definitely ants that mean business! They can quite easily conquer any unsuspecting,
injured, or dead animal and reduce it to bones. This used to be a mouse! So, guys, you're about to see this incredible
process now. I have a great gift for the Fire Nation as
a sort of celebratory sacrifice and thank you present for graciously deciding to forego
breeding in my home. This is going to be crazy! AC Family, behold! A fire breathing dragon! Well okay, it's a monitor lizard. It's just a juvenile and it happened to have
passed away at my friend's pet store. The carcass is pretty impressive itself! It's entire body was covered in very tough
scales, so it was going to be interesting to see just how the Fire Nation was going
to burrow into this thing to get inside! My guess was it was going to enter through
the eyes, ears, nose, or mouth. Alright, AC Family, are you ready to do this? Let's get to it! 1 - 2 - 3! I fixated the monitor lizard atop the entanglement
of branch work just above their main mothernest, trying my best to work quickly before the
swarm came. There we go! And now to watch the magic happen! The fire ants immediately began to board the
monitor lizard, inspecting its peculiar scales that covered its whole carcass. This was the very first time these fire ants
had ever come in contact with a reptile or tasted reptile meat, so naturally, they rushed
to the scene excitedly, ready to chow down on some dragon flesh! Fire ants raced in from all areas of the territories
to check out the new bounty that had fallen from the skies. And so began the great dissection! Wow! Check out that super major using its jaws
to bite off a scale. It seemed like that was the primary objective
at the moment! Bite into the softer areas of the skin between
the scales. More and more reinforcements arrived on location
to help with the dissection. Isn't it amazing watching all the ants cooperating
at finding a weak spot in the leathery skin of the lizard? I knew that as soon as one of these ants found
a way into this giant lizard carcass, it would surely let the others know of the gateway
it had discovered to their grand draconian feast! One hour later, it was clear that the biggest
talk of the kingdom was now the monitor lizard carcass we had given them. Have a look! Even ants from the neighbouring satellite
nests had formed trails to and from the great dead dragon, which would provide the colony
a tonne of nourishment for days to come. Look at that swarm of ants all trying to get
in. So what do you guys think? How many days do you think it will take the
Fire Nation to finish this lizard? Leave your guesses in the comments and go
back to it later to let us know if you guessed right! Now wanna hear something cool, AC Family? The reason why all this meat is super valuable
to the fire ants is because over the past few months leading up to breeding season,
a great deal of the protein the ants collected in their diet was used up to create the alates,
the virgin queen and male reproductives which generally speaking are quite nutritionally
expensive for the colony to grow and upkeep. I mean look how large they are compared to
the other regular ants. The alates require a lot of food and particularly
protein, and so for months the colony had to invest a great deal of their protein collection
into these alates. But now that breeding season is coming to
an end, the Fire Nation producing these nutrient-demanding reproductives is no longer a priority, and
all protein acquired from the ants' diet can once again, go towards feeding the queen as
usual so she could pump out more eggs, as well as all the larvae of the colony, so they
can grow into adult worker ants as quickly as possible, growing their numbers more and
more! And that AC Family, is why these fire ants
are eager to get into this massive lizard body. They are all on a mission to grow their nation
even bigger and more powerful. I resolved to let the ants feed in peace and
come back later to check up on their progress. I was riveted at the sight of the workers
all working hard with their mandibles to penetrate the lizard's thick leathery skin. Check it out, AC Family! Through the night ants were busy making their
way to the lizard from the nest hoping to bore a hole into the carcass so they could
finally start feeding. Some late flier alates had decided to emerge
from the nest tonight, to hopefully get their last shot at nuptial flying, but the workers
clearly had their minds on just one thing, and it wasn't catering to these alates. They wanted in, and the workers were not going
to stop until they were! It was just amazing to watch the night shift
at work! I had a feeling it wouldn't take the fire
ants much longer to create that hole into the lizard's body. Could you imagine being one of these ants? Normally they would be working in complete
darkness here, but regardless of an absence of light, they all still are able to work
as effectively as they would in the day. If you were wondering if ants sleep, yes,
they take short few minute naps several times a day and adjust according to work load demand,
and tonight it looks like a lot less ants will be napping here in the Selva de Fuego,
and that's how it will be until the lizard is finally consumed. Perhaps that would be by morning? I went to bed and when morning came, you guys
won't believe what I woke up to when I came back to check up on them the next day. A swinging arm?! Was this a zombie lizard? Obviously, not, but the fire ants had not
only managed to burrow into the lizard's body over night, but were now in the limbs gnawing
at the joint of this arm, making it move! How gruesome! In fact, looking at the lizard's body, the
ants had successfully managed to burrow into several places of the lizard's torso. Whoa! Oh, they've eaten the back legs and were feasting
on that tail. And, I was right! As expected, the fire ants did manage to burrow
through the lizard's eyes, nose, and ears. Hope you guys aren't eating right now, but
look at that rib cage! Wow! They were eating through the lizard's lungs
now and had ploughed a huge gaping hole right through to the other side. Appendages had been almost entirely stripped
of flesh. And it seemed the majority of the meat now
lay here in this section of the gut and base of the tail. Mmmmmm! And guys check out this bird's eye view! From the top, you could see that the ants
had been busy eating holes through the lizard's body through its back. Whoa! You could totally see its spine and rib cage! The Fire Nation are just savages! As gross as all of this was, it was amazing
to see the ants working into the carcass in such detail with my 4K camera. Again, take a moment to imagine being one
of these ants, with your face and body, thorax deep into the rotting flesh of this smelly
lizard carcass. But for these ants, this is gourmet, and a
dish they've never before tasted! If you were one of these ants, you'd be rejoicing
at the smells and flavours, because this is utter heaven to your fire ant palatte! So how were they bringing all the food back
to the nest? Well, ants came rushing up the branches following
a very thick pheromone trail laid down by thousands of ants before it, and came to the
carcass to gorge themselves on the lizard meat. Now here they had two options. One was to simply feed and fill up the first
of their two stomachs, i.e. their social stomach. Once their social stomach was full, they could
return to the nest and distribute the food by regurgitating its contents into the mouths
of other ants, the queen, and larvae. Or the other option, was to get your mandibles
around a fat chunk of meat, dislodge it from the carcass using your mandibles as a saw,
and carry the lizard meat nugget home for further processing. It's a bit of a trek down back to the nest
carrying the huge chunk in your mouth, but you do get to bring back more meat home than
if you were to stuff your social stomach. And look! They've begun creating piles of lizard meat
chunks on the surface of the nest. I suppose it's a quicker system to just dump
what you've carved out of the carcass into a pile for others to carry into the nest,
so you can rush on back to the site to carve out more lizard meat chunks. Let's see if the lizard would be completely
finished by night! Right now, it seemed the fire ants were making
good time on this major operation. It wasn't going to be much longer now. The ants worked fastidiously through the night,
carving out the remaining meat from the lizard. I forgot to mention that the Ant Room stank
of decaying flesh throughout this entire process since day 1! It was disgusting for me to smell, but I'm
sure it was heaven for these ants that relentlessly worked through the night to feed on the lizard. It was important that the ants process this
lizard meat as soon as possible, to ensure other thieves don't try to take it from them! With a carcass this smelly, it would surely
attract birds, other reptiles, insects, and even other ants, but the Fire Nation would
be ready to defend this bounty at all costs! And based on my experience, nobody messes
with a huge colony of fire ants, not wild ants, not geckos running loose in my home,
not even flies! There were no maggots found on the carcass
at all over the past 2 days, which meant the fire ants were diligent at shooing the flies
away! Had this been a sole decaying lizard without
the Fire Nation eating it, this would have been riddled with maggots by now! It was also interesting to see alates at the
carcass, probably still hoping to mate. The piles of lizard meat were growing in size
now, and I was certain that by morning, this lizard would be completely done with. Day 3. I approached the Selva de Fuego to check up
on the state of the lizard. Very few ants were on site now, which meant
the ants had pretty much finished what they could from the lizard's body. The body cavity was completely hollowed out
now, with only some skin and bone left in place. The legs were reduced to bones. Remaining scavenger workers did their best
to scrape every little last bit of meat they could. In nature, the remaining decaying parts inedible
to the ants, would have been further broken down by soil creatures, fungi, and microbes,
but regardless, watching these fire ants reduce this lizard carcass from this to this, was a spectacle I would never forget. What did you guys think of this process? Was it gross or cool? Or both? What other things should I try feeding the
Fire Nation? The surge of protein from this lizard will
nourish the colony for days! The larvae will grow fat and extra quick,
and the Fire Nation's egg-laying queen will be able to produce and lay extra eggs, and
the Fire Nation will continue to reign supreme in these tropical Amazonian lands. The droppings and leftovers of the ants will
go on to nourish the plants of the Selva de Fuego, and continue the cycling of nutrients
within this contained ecosystem, whose members are all interconnected and interdependent. It's no wonder ants happen to be among the
most important scavengers and predators in the ecosystems they are part of. The Fire Nation will always be my favourite
ant colony of our Ant Room, and as long as you guys continue watching these ant videos,
participating in the polls, and helping me with decisions that ultimately affect their
individual fates, this ant keeping journey will always be sacred and extra special! Thank you AC Family, and until next week,
it's ant love forever! AC Family, did you enjoy today's episode? I couldn't believe we were able to film what
we filmed today! Another epic ant story up ahead next week,
so you know what to do! Smash that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON
now for notifications, so you don't miss out on these mind-blowing ant stories of the Ant
Room! And don't forget to hit the LIKE button every
single time, including now! It would really help a lot! Speaking of ants, it's approaching the end
of nuptial flight season in the Northern Hemisphere, and a lot of you are catching queen ants now,
and in case you didn't know, we've got all the top of the line ant keeping gear for you
ant keepers at all levels from beginner to advanced, as well as a tonne of new and exciting
products for the ant keeping community not available anywhere else, so head on over to
AntsCanada.com, and browse through our shop. We ship worldwide, and offer full email support
if you need us. We also have ant colonies with a queen available
in most regions, so go check us out and pick up your ant farm kit and ant gear today! If you're new to the channel, and want to
catch up on all your AntsCanada Lore, feel free to binge watch this complete story line
playlist here, which traces the origins of all the ant colonies of the ant room, so you
can follow their stories and better appreciate how these ant kingdoms came to be, and why
we love them so much! AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie
for you here, if you'd like to watch the full, extended play footage of the fire ants eating
the lizard. It's a pretty amazing process when watched
in completion so do check it out! And now it's time for the AC Question of the
Week! Last week we asked: What other creatures other than the ants
did we spot moving into the Ant Tower? Congratulations to Dhruv who correctly answered: "Mites" Congratulations, Dhruv, you just won a free
e-book handbook from our shop! In this week's AC Question of the Week, we
ask: Why is the protein from this lizard
valuable to the Fire Nation? Leave your answer in the comments section
and you could also win a free e-book handbook from our shop! Hope you can 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!
