Oh man! Wow! I can't believe what I managed to film this
week in the Antiverse, i.e. my Ant Room, which houses a variety of epic ant kingdoms and
vivariums, containing a menagerie of exotic creatures that all live together interdependently,
but guys, the next gigantic beasts you are about to see in this video, that have just
made their grand arrival to the Ant Room, will surely blow your mind, as it did mine! I have never in my life seen creatures so
cool! You'll see exactly what I mean soon. Now as some of you may or may not know, back
in October, I acquired some new scarab beetle grubs, the larvae of the world-famous Xylotrupes
gideon philippinensis, the giant rhinoceros beetle. I created individual soil incubators for them
called the Chambers of Sudan, and I was told that the fully formed adult rhino beetles
would emerge from these soils by Christmas time. I, as well as many of you, were thrilled! Well, Christmas came and went, and there was
no sign of the beetles, then New Years came and went, and still, no sign of giant rhino
beetles anywhere. It concerned me because I'd never raised rhino
beetles before and I thought I had gotten something wrong, or perhaps some disaster
had struck somehow, so I asked you guys whether or not I should go in and check up on the
beetles. According to the votes, over 86% of you here
on Youtube felt it was time to go into the Chambers of Sudan and check up on our beloved
beetles, and AC Family, what I ended up seeing is something I'd never witnessed before and
something I know you guys will never forget! And guys, wait until you see what my epic
plans are at the end of this video, so do keep on watching 'til the end! Ladies and gentlemen, gather round and witness
the glory of these majestic mammoths of the insect world, our new rhino beetles, here
on the AntsCanada Ant Channel. Please subscribe to my channel and hit the
bell icon. Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy! AC Family, behold, standing before us are
the Chambers of Sudan, specially designed incubating and growing quarters named after
Sudan, the last surviving male white rhino. They've been moved out of the Ant Room because
they are about to undergo a special operation, which I anticipated was going to get messy. Each of these chambers contain a cocopeat
mulch and chunks of decaying coconut wood along with the larvae that were to eat all
that good stuff, until they grew up into adult beetles. But why haven't we seen the beetles yet? It's been three weeks passed their due date. Honestly, going into these Chambers of Sudan,
I was prepared for the worst. Dead larvae, dead beetles, it could have been
anything. So to go in I had this tray, onto which I
would be dumping out all the medium. Of course, I needed my trusty pair of tweezers
to help me work my way through the medium for whatever I might find, and I also used
a plastic spoon just in case I needed it. The rounded edge would prove safer working
around any living larvae or pupae. I also had on hand a bag of decaying coconut
tree wood and debris that I collected from my neighbourhood. This was on stand-by, if ever any of the beetle
larvae were still actually alive but had just run out of food, perhaps, something I figured
was a big possibility seeing as they've not come yet. I also had a bag of soil on stand-by, containing
some freshly decaying wood chips and mulch, to add to their growing medium in case they
needed more. Alright AC Family, and now for the moment
of truth. It was time for us to go in and get to the
bottom of our rhino beetle no-show. I put on my gloves. Are you guys ready? Let's do this. The first chamber I wanted to grab was this
one. Have a look at it, guys. To my horror, this growing chamber was full
of fungus. See all those white hair-like fibres? Every single wall of this chamber showed this
fungus growing profusely throughout the medium, which is definitely alarming and not a good
sign, because in my mind, this was evidence that the larva inside had perhaps died, which
lead to this mass fungus outbreak. Now before I go in, many of you asked in previous
videos how the beetle larvae were breathing. Well, each of these chambers contain four
breathing holes, as well as one of these rotating doors which pop off. Opening the chamber, the sight of the fungus
frosting the surface of the medium like deadly snow, made my stomach turn. I didn't want to jump to conclusions but in
my mind, this beetle larva was surely dead. AC Family, what do you think? Let's see if we're right. With my tools on hand, I carefully tipped
the chamber to lay it on its side and started to carefully excavate. I made sure to inspect every clump in the
medium. Soon, I ran into a layer of decaying coconut
tree wood, placed inside back when this chamber was first made. It was hard to tell if it had been eaten or
not. (Sigh) Let's keep moving. I continued to dig deeper, surprised that
I hadn't seen any signs yet of the larva dead or alive... wait... I stopped dead in my tracks. What was this? AC Family, a movement... I couldn't believe my eyes. The world all around me stood still as I watched
this miracle of a juggernaut moving its legs, trying its best to right itself. Guys, have a look! It looks like we had a living and healthy
adult rhino beetle! I went in to fetch it and bring it into the
light so I could have a better look at it, and the whole time it stridulated at me with
some buggy hissing noises. The stridulation in these beetles is caused
by the rubbing of body parts together, and its purpose is to scare away predators. I never got used to the sound, and it semi-worked
at keeping me on guard. But OMG, AC Family, can you believe this thing?! It was absolutely massive and heavy! I was so blown away by how solidly this rhino
beetle was built. Check out those crazy horns! The presence of the horns meant this was a
male. Males use their horns to wrestle each other
for territory and the right to breed with females. And check out his incredible face. He sports two short, club-like antennae, and
warns any predators that they risk a painful pinch between two, double toothed horns. I could not believe the anatomy of this majestic
creature. If this thing were the size of a human it
would totally be an unstoppable tank, and dangerous! It insisted on walking and as it did, I had
to remind myself that this thing was a living insect, as it more resembled a windup toy
of some sort. Haha! I placed our bull back inside his container,
inserted some wood to give him some extra shelter, cleaned his enclosure up a bit, and
everything was A ok! Such amazing news that he was actually alive
in there! Next! I grabbed another chamber and began to dig,
much more hopeful this time. Suddenly, more beetle sounds from within the
dirt, and a glimmer of shine from within a chamber. AC Family, we've reached another beetle! I went in carefully to move surrounding medium
so I could fetch this beetle from its soil cell. I immediately noticed that this one was living
with a few mites, which apparently is a common thing in scarab beetle keeping. This male had smaller horns than our last
male, but was still quite impressive! I placed the fella back into his enclosure
along with a piece of wood for shelter and what I caught the male doing next truly surprised
me. AC Family, watch this! The beetle was a digging machine! Using his head gear and spiny legs, in a few
short moments this beetle was completely below the soil. It seems warfare isn't the only purpose of
having those crazy horns. They're also double functioning as digging
apparatus. Over the next hour and a half I took the time
to go through every single chamber, and in the end, this was the outcome of our grand
excavation and inspection. AC Family, here you will see five piles. Each pile contains the various things I found
while searching through each chamber. Let's start with this first pile on the right. Well, not a pile, but a single chamber. This chamber was both good and bad news. As I dug through it, all I could find was
some larvae skin, but no beetle, so the conclusion: the beetle larva, somewhere along the line,
had died. Not sure why. But the good news is, it was the only chamber
in which I found any dead. Moving on to the next pile, in these two chambers,
I was surprised to find beetle larvae still growing. Some of the larvae I put into these chambers
back in October were smaller than the rest, so perhaps these were the youngest of the
batch. So, I emptied out some of the digging medium,
woah check out all that beetle larvae frass! I'm gunna use some of that in a future terrarium! I then placed the beetle larvae back in, added
more decaying coconut wood, poured in some fresh mulch, and topped off the container
with more medium. I was happy to know these larvae were still
at least alive. Moving on to this middle pile, the findings
get more and more exciting from here on in. Can you guess what these chambers contain? Well, for these two chambers I didn't even
need to dig because luckily, I could see what they contained through the wall. Pupae! The teenage transition stage of all insects
undergoing complete metamorphosis. See that horn? From the looks of things it seems we have
two males on the way. So exciting, right guys? I expect these beetles to arrive very soon! And now we move on to our next pile. Can you guess what I found in these two chambers? AC Family, I am thrilled to show you. In two of the chambers, I dug and I dug, to
reveal such precious finds. Have a look! Beetles with no horns. AC Family, these are female rhino beetles. Perfectly rounded heads, also with club-like
antennae and spiny legs, these female rhino beetles were equally as impressive. To me these female rhino beetles possess that
iconic scarab beetle look. Just gorgeous to look at, and also solidly
built. One interesting thing to note, was that in
every chamber containing a fully formed adult beetle, I found two skins. Look at this, AC Family. The first one was the shed skin of the larvae
when they became pupae, complete with the larval head case and legs. The second one was the outer shell of the
pupae which they discarded, when they emerged as adult beetles. Pretty cool to see the historic evidence of
their journey from young to old. Alright, guys, so these two chambers contain
the females. Let's place some pink post-it notes to mark
them as such. You'll see what this is for in a little bit. But now that we've done that, are you ready
to be blown away by our next and final pile? Will you believe that this tower of not one,
not two, not three, not four, not five, but six chambers all contained adult male rhino
beetles? The various males' horns varied in size, from
small horn structures, to medium-sized horns, to large horns! I'm not sure why all males weren't created
equally, but it was interesting to find proportionally a great ratio of males in the batch. But this male rhino beetle disproportion was
perfect, because as mentioned at the start of this video, I'm about to show you what
epic plan I have ahead for these beetles and for us, the AC Family, in just a little bit. I placed blue sticky post-it notes on both
pupae chambers, and all the male chambers. So what are all these post-it notes for, you
ask? Well, first I was going to use them to designate
names to each of the beetles. I named them all after Greek deities. Zeus, King of the gods, Poseidon, Lord of
the Sea, Ares, God of War, Apollo, God of Healing, Light, Truth, and Medicine, Dionysus,
God of Harvest, and Hephaestus, God of Fire. As for the pupae, Hades, god of the underworld,
and Hypnos, god of sleep. The females are Hera, queen of the gods, and
Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. And now, are you ready to hear my ultimate
plan, guys?! So exciting! Ok, so now that we have all our rhino beetles
named and separated, my plan for these beetles, is to sort of replicate the naturally occurring
events of nature, in a systematic manner that is both controlled and well, fun for us. AC Family, I would like for us to play a little
game of sorts. A tournament, a rhinoceros beetle tournament. So as I mentioned previously, in the wild,
male rhinoceros beetles use their great horns to fight, not kill each other, but simply
wrestle and subdue each other for the right to territory, feeding grounds, and breeding
with females. The beetles after emerging from their pupae
underground await for heavy rains to signal when they should emerge in the night to start
feeding, claiming territory, and breeding, which is why they weren't around all this
time. They were waiting for it to rain. And now that we have our rhino beetles separated
and waiting for their next step in their lives, I began to prepare my epic plans. But before I get into that, I have to quickly
make a correction, guys. I double checked the pupae the other day,
and I am glad I did because one of the pupae turned out to be a female and not a male as
I had thought. So we actually had not eight males and two
females, but seven males and three females. I renamed Hypnos to Athena, goddess of war. Now, here's where it gets fun! What you guys are to do is to select your
chosen rhino beetle gladiator, among the seven males. Now just to be fair, I won't show you each
male per name, because then you guys would all just choose the male with the largest
horns, and purposely not select those with small horns. There are indeed a couple males of the group
with much larger horns from the rest of the bunch, and I'm not too sure if size matters
in the beetle world, but let's just assume that it does. Also, some of the males have an alarming case
of mites. Not too sure if that is a deterrence or not,
either, but either way, it's an even playing field for all of us selecting our male rhino
of choice, so in the comments section let us know who your pick is by name, choose only
one and stick with your gladiator, because in next week's video, provided that
our last male Hades arrives in timely fashion, we shall begin the very first AC Rhino Beetle
Games, cheering on our favourite male rhino beetle, as they fight for the throne to claim
dominion, over a beetle paradise, and a predator-free and perfect existence, of endless food, and
females, for the remaining final few months of their lives under our loving care in the
Antiverse. All losing beetles shall be thrown out to
fend for themselves back in the wild. AC Family, choose your gladiator, as we step
in to the Ringo Stadium, battlegrounds of the 2019 Rhino Beetle Games. Alright, AC Family, first off Happy New Year! Hope you're ready for more fun and discovery
of nature and the world of insects for 2019, and of course more ants! Be sure to choose which of the male beetles
you're rooting for and let's have fun with this up coming rhino beetle tournament. So guys, be sure to smash that subscribe button
and bell icon now, so you get notified at every single upload and follow this continuing
story, and hit the like button every single time, including now. 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 would just like to watch extended play footage of the rhino beetles. Check them out. You might just find something interesting,
or even a clue as to who might be a good bet to root for. And now it's time for the AC Question of the
Week! Last week we asked: What does polymorphic mean? Congratulations to G Cs who correctly answered: Polymorphic means that within a
species, such as ants and honeybees, there are differences, such as size
and other design features. Congratulations, G Cs, you just won a free
e-book handbook from our shop! In this week's AC Question of the Week, we
ask: How can you tell male rhino
beetles from females? 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!
Dear antscanada, you could’ve been the man in front of the antkeeping hobby. Now anybody who has seen you knows that you only care about views. Hope the cash was worth it I ain’t watching.
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