Alright, and now for the not so good news,
guys. I mentioned that I caught something crazy
on camera while filming this episode! Have a look at this ant here! Do you notice something peculiar about it? There, under its head! When I saw it, my heart dropped into the pit
of my stomach! Oh no! A mite! A huge one, and one unlike any other I’ve
ever seen before! Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the
BELL ICON! Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! I can’t believe it, guys! The mite is super creepy and most of all just
huge! I’ve never seen an ant mite like this before. It kind of reminded me of a massive deer tick
or something! So, turns out, after observing this thing
for a week, I’ve learned a few things about it, and was able to get some expert info about
this mystery creature clinging on to our ants, from an actual acarologist, i.e. someone who
studies mites for a living! I’ll go over everything I know in this video,
and then will be asking for your helpful opinions as to what we should do next, so please hear
me out and stay tuned for all of that. Alright, so before I go into what I’ve learned
about this mite, let me go over the three possibilities as to what it could be: First possibility, is the worst case scenario,
which is that this mite is indeed a parasite, that sucks the blood of our ants, which means
it is a danger to our new, young carpenter ant colony, which you guys have officially
named the Woodland Warriors. We’ve seen on this channel in the past how
devastating blood-sucking, parasitic mites could be, as it wiped out my once thriving
yellow crazy ant colony, the Golden Empire, which used to number in the millions, but
after the mites gained a foothold, had no chance of recovery, and I had to totally start
the colony over again. It was also suspected by some of you, that
my late OG fire ant colony, the Fire Nation, was also wiped out by blood-sucking parasitic
mites, as one was spotted on a surviving worker. You guys even spotted blood-sucking ant mites
on some of the wild ants living in Antopia, my backyard, which you can see here on this
black crazy ant. Overall it seems parasitic, blood-sucking
mites tend to be a common pandemic in the ant world, and an agonizing nightmare to deal
with if you’re an ant colony. The second possibility is perhaps this mite
is a friend and its relationship to the ants is a mutualistic one. If you’ve been following this channel for
awhile, you’ll know that periodically we will spot mites on our ants that fall under
the category of “phoretic mites”, essentially mites that proceed to a certain life stage
where they attach to the bodies of ants, the moment environmental conditions become unfavourable
for the mites, like when it gets too dry, too wet, too hot, too cold, or there’s a
shortage of food, for instance. These non-dangerous phoretic mites don’t
feed on the blood of the ants, but instead normally eat fungus or decaying material that
results from the waste the ants produce. In this way, these mites are biological friends
to the ants, and are actually beneficial to them because they help with clean up, and
only use the ants to hitch a ride once their environment becomes unfavourable, with the
hopes that the ants will move to a place that is more favourable for the mites, at which
point the phoretic mites proceed to the next life stage where they detach from the ants
and go on living their normal lives eating the ants’ waste as usual. In fact, these phoretic mites are such a non-danger,
they don’t even have mouthparts of anuses at this phoretic lifestage when they’re
attached to the ants’ bodies. While on the ants, they’re in sort of this
non-feeding dormant mode, to self-preserve until the ants take them to greener pastures. In fact, remember a few weeks ago I freaked
out when I saw mites on our Golden Empire? I had feared the blood-sucking mites had returned! But, turns out, AC Family, I’m happy to
let you know that the mites were phoretic. The yellow crazy ants no longer have them,
and my guess is the mites all detached from our ants as soon as it started to rain more
when I live, and humidity levels in the ant room rose. So going back to this mite on members of the
Woodland Warriors, maybe this mite, though huge and scary, is actually a friendly mite. I don’t think it would be considered phoretic
though, because it totally looks active and non-dormant. So gross when it moves, by the way. Makes me really itchy! But my suspicion is, it could be the adult
form of the small garbage-eating mites, we spotted crawling around in their garbage pile
in last week’s episode, in which case its presence would actually be beneficial to our
ants. The third possibility is that this mite has
what is called a commensalistic relationship with the ants, which essentially means it’s
mooching off the ants and its presence neither benefits the ants in any way, nor harms them. For instance, one possibility is that this
mite could just be using the ants for protection, shelter, transportation, or simply as their
permanent mobile homes, and doesn’t necessarily feed on things that harm the ants. In this case, the mite is a moocher and commensalistic! So with all that in mind, I’ve been keeping
an eye on this mystery giant mite over the past week, and have made a few interesting
observations. Check this out, guys! First, I noticed that I don’t find the mites
anywhere else on the ants’ bodies, except for the bottom of the ants’ faces. AC Family, it seems these mites are literal
face-huggers! Let’s call them that for now. The facehuggers seem very adept at clinging
on to the bottom of the ants’ heads, upside down, and prefer to face inward towards the
ants’ gaster end. Another thing which I’m unsure about is
how many facehugger mites there actually are! Sometimes I sense that there is only this
one huge facehugger in the colony, because I don’t recall ever seeing two ants with
a facehugger at the same time. At other times, however, I suspect there are
more than one facehugger in the colony. I do know for a fact that the mite or mites
move from ant to ant, because I once saw it on our one male ant, who as you can see doesn’t
seem to have it here in this shot. My guess is it hops from ant to ant when the
ants feed mouth-to-mouth via trophallaxis. If this is the case, it would make sense that
this mite specializes on ants as their host, and it wouldn’t even surprise me that the
biological mite-ant relationship, be it mutualism, commensalism, or parasitism, went as far as
this facehugger species only being found in the nests of this species of carpenter ant,
as there are many cases in the ant world where ants have formed exclusive symbiotic relationships
like that, like our Golden Empire and their cute ant crickets, a specialized species of
cricket found only in yellow crazy ant nests and nowhere else in the wild. Overall, I had so many questions in my head,
so I went into my network of insect friends, and contacted an acarologist friend of mine,
a biologist who studies mites for a living named Dr. Kaitlyn Campbell from the University
of North Carolina. She was actually the one who taught us about
phoretic mites. If anyone would know about this mystery facehugger
mite, it would be her! I wrote: “Hi Dr. Kaitlin, It's been a few years since we last chatted. We at the AntsCanada Youtube channel were
mind-blown by the concept of mite phoresis, which you taught us a few years ago. We now know not to panic right away when we
spot mites on our ants. Thank you for that! However, yet again I've spotted a large mystery
mite or tick (?) that clings to the bottom of my carpenter ants’ heads. I was wondering if you could take a look at
our video and let me know if you think we should be worried, or if they are somehow
helpful to the colony. They're quite large but don't look like the
typical blood-sucking mites.” I linked last week’s episode and hoped she
would bring good news. And AC Family, to my delight, she responded
back and this was her surprising response: “Hi Mikey Thanks for your email and the cool video! The specimen on your Camponotus ant is definitely
a mite and is in the large group called Mesostigmata. Without seeing a specimen it is very hard
for me to be able to tell what it is unfortunately (a lot of the characteristics that help me
ID them are on the underside). I have copied Ron Ochoa on here since he is
also very interested in ant mites. My guess is that it is some sort of Laelapid,
maybe Myrmozercon? Some of these can be harmful for the ants. If you are able to send a sample I could diagnose
it with more certainty for you! Best wishes,
Kaitlin” Sweet! This was all interesting to know, plus awesome
that we were connected to another acarologist who was into ant mites to help us solve the
case! Dr. Ron, who happens to be from an entirely
different state, Maryland, working for the USDA, also emailed back saying… “Dear Mikey, I do agree with Dr. Campbell. If you can send the mite to her or me, we
will be able to study it. Hope you could collect several.” And so there you have it, guys. I needed to send them specimens of the mite,
as they weren’t able to ID the exact species of our facehugger or facehuggers, based on
just what they could gather from our video. Mite identification, it seems, is just as
involved and complex as identifying ant species. But now here’s the thing. If these facehuggers are indeed beneficial
to our ant colony, I fear removing this one mite could be detrimental to the colony if
it does help the carpenter ants survive in some way, i.e. by eating up harmful mold from
the nest, or if there’s an even deeper co-dependence going on that we don’t know about, say for
instance, the mites feed on harmful wood molds attacking the ants’ bodies. In fact, on this note: I don’t even know
how the mite got here in the first place, seeing as this entire colony was raised in
an enclosed test tube the whole time, from just our single pregnant queen ant. Could it be that the mite was attached to
our queen before the colony was even born, since before she even left her birth nest
to embark on her nuptial flight to mate? Could our carpenter ants and this mite, be
involved together in one very tight and long standing symbiosis? Could this be a symbiosis ant and mite biologists
don’t even know about yet? We’ve been making a few novel ant discoveries
on this channel lately, as I gather things such as this are largely unstudied. Perhaps a stretch, but I’m not about to
rule out the possibility that removing this mite, which does seem to be super specialized
for life with the ants, could actually have a reverse effect and negative impact on the
ants. So my second dilemma is: I wonder if I should
wait until I spot more of these facehuggers before I collect them for sending off to our
mite experts in the US, just in case they are beneficial mites. Now, Dr. Caitlin mentioned that a lot of the
characteristics that help ID the mite are on the underside of the mite. I wonder if I could simply isolate the mite
and film it from below with my 4K macro camera, and hopefully get a video image clear enough
for Dr. Kaitlin and/or Dr. Ron to get a species identification. Then, I could simply release the unharmed
mite back into the ant colony afterward. If I send the mite all the way to the US,
it’s surely not coming back and would need to be drowned in alcohol. Finally, the third problem is: how on Earth
do I even collect these facehuggers? The easiest way in my mind is to actually
fish out the ant or ants with the mites already attached to them, and simply send both the
ants with the mites together to Drs Caitlin and Ron. It might even be useful to them to have a
knowledge about the host ant, as well, but the main problem with that is removing worker
ants from the colony this early in the game could be detrimental to our Woodland Warriors,
as they’re still a young colony, and at this stage of their development, every worker
counts, because there is lots of work to be done, babies to care for, mouths to feed,
etc. So now, AC Family here’s where I need your
help. What do you think we should do? Do we wait and observe the mite before taking
any course of action? Perhaps see if we spot more of them over time
or if the ants start dying off? My fear is if we wait too long, though, is
it might be too late and our Woodland Warriors could be harmed by a growing population of
what were lethal parasitic mites all along. AC Family, our Woodland Warriors need your
help. In the past, you guys have always been such
a vital source of help for the ant colonies we love and care for together on this channel. I am hopeful we can put our minds together
and solve this facehugger mite sauga. The fate of our beloved Woodland Warriors
is in your hands. AC Family, I know we can get to the bottom
of all this! Let me know what you think we should do and
do keep updated on this ongoing mite sauga 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 that are on our carpenter
ants. They make me so itchy! 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: What happens to a male ant after it mates? Congratulations to Rogene Fermindoza who answered: The male ants die after mating. Congratulations Rogene, 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 a phoretic mite? 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!
damn this youtuber has a subreddit