Guys, behold! The new island paradise I call the “Jungle
Gym”, a beautifully crafted island of trees, sticks, and plants, to be the home for a very
special ant colony of ours. This ant colony is special, because believe
it or not, we’re still waiting to find out if it is in fact a brand new, undiscovered
ant species. Incredible right? More about that later. But this ant colony, as you may have deduced,
is very important to ant science, and at the moment, resides in an AC test tube and Test
tube Portal setup, but having them flourish into a fully fledged and mature ant colony
is of utmost importance. And so, today these unidentified ants will
finally get to experience the outside world, a world crafted and designed just for them,
for the very first time in their lives. It’s time we release the ants onto these
virgin lands where they could nest, forage, hunt, and further grow. You guys will truly love the ants’ reaction
to their new world! Welcome to the Jungle Gym, my beloved ants! And to you all, ladies and gents, welcome
to the AntsCanada Ant Channel! Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel and hit the
BELL ICON! Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! AC Family, I just love introducing a young
ant colony, from the little test tube space they’d always known and grew up in during
their first stage of development, to their very first wide and open home. It’s one of those milestone ant keeping
joys, and you guys will totally trip out at how the ants reacted to their new kingdom
home, but do keep on watching until the end, as I have a very important question to ask
you regarding our beloved scientifically unidentified and currently unnamed ants. Now before we go ahead and introduce our ants
to their new island, let’s have a quick look at how the colony is doing now. As mentioned, they’ve been developing and
growing here in their test tube for the past couple of months. I initially started with just the queen, who
then went on to lay eggs, which eventually developed into the first generation of worker
ants, the nanitics, who helped the queen care for her brood, as well as taking over the
house chores, keeping things clean and tidy. I kept this test tube away in the dark and
undisturbed. Almost two months later, the ant colony had
grown into an explosive young colony with a tonne of brood! Have a look at them! The colony is much bigger and more productive
now. You’ve got eggs up there. Larvae, and pupae. It’s amazing to see how organized the ants
are, sorting the young by age. The lighter coloured ants are newly eclosed
worker ants, meaning they’re newly emerged from their pupae, and have exoskeletons which
are still hardening. They eventually turn their signature shiny
black once fully hardened, but it’s cool to see that they’re already working before
they’re totally hardened. There’s the queen checking up on things,
before heading back to her resting spot here away from the light. At this point, she no longer has to worry
about caring for her young, as her workers take care of everything for her. She just needs to focus on producing eggs
for the rest of her life now. They lick all the young clean with their antisceptic
saliva, as well as all surfaces of their test tube, in order to keep mold and other harmful
pathogens out of their living space. Their test tube was also now attached to an
AC Test Tube Portal from antscanada.com, where the ants would forage for food. I placed dead insects and honey drops into
the test tube portal and the colony would simply feed from the morsels and continue
to grow in size. From what I’ve seen in their test tube portal,
they eat about 50% insects and 50% sweet stuff. They don’t seem to have a preference for
one food type over the other. They also use the AC Test Tube Portal as a
bathroom site and garbage dump area, which I usually clean up with a cotton ball every
few days, but soon, I won’t need to do this, as their next home will have soil creatures
like springtails and mites to take care of such things. Now as mentioned, these ants are possibly
a new undiscovered species, currently awaiting identification from ant scientists, but what
we do know is that they look nothing like any of the ant species known to exist in my
part of the world, which may mean they could actually be an undiscovered ant species! Isn’t that exciting? The most we know now about their identification
is that these ants do belong to the widespread genus Crematogaster, known for their pointed
heart-shaped gasters, which can bend over their heads, making them look like they’re
doing hand stands at times as you can see here, which gives all ants belonging to this
Crematogaster genus, their common name “acrobat ants”. Perhaps some of you may have seen acrobat
ants in your yard? They’re all quite cute! But these special acrobat ants, may possibly
be a new species of acrobat ants, so we on this channel have been looking forward to
the colony’s development into maturity, where my hope is that they reach into the
thousands or possibly millions! But designing a new home for these undiscovered
species of acrobat ants would be challenging because, well, we don’t know much about
them. We’re on the forefront of ant science, here,
AC Family, by keeping these ants. Isn’t that exciting? I’ve tried a couple times to raise this
unnamed species of acrobat ant but failed both times, only getting to a couple dozen
workers. But this time, we’re at about thirty or
more workers and an incredible brood pile, with a tonne of new eggs on the way, so it
does look like we’re doing well here with these ants. With the colony now booming with lots of workers,
I felt they were ready for their new home, but with very little knowledge about them,
seeing as they’re possibly an undiscovered species, therefore greatly understudied, the
next problem was, how to design that new home to help them further flourish as a colony? To help me address this question, I knew I
had to look at how these ants live in the wild, and turns, out they’re quite abundant
in my yard. So AC Family, here’s what I know about them
based on what I’ve seen in wild colonies of these ants. They love trees, sticks, and twigs, and in
fact, I have not seen them nest in soil, but rather within hollow sticks of dead plants. Not sure if they also nest within living plants,
but we’ll see. I knew their new home needed to be abundant
in climbing areas and plants to match their preferred habitat in the wild. They are also quite active and love to run
and forage all surfaces they could travel, so after some careful thought, I, your Creator
of Worlds, drew up plans for their next kingdom, and went straight to work. Their home needed to be perfect, so we could
see this colony succeed at reaching maturity, and could be the first in the world to learn
about them. Here’s where things get really fun, guys! AC Family, behold. The empty glass enclosure into which we were
going to build the ultimate island paradise for our unnamed acrobat ants. For ant home builders like myself, it’s
like a blank canvas to a painter, and in fact, the time has come to paint. Time to apply the ant barrier. This talcum layer, once dried, causes any
and all ants to slip off it, thereby keeping all ants inside the territories, allowing
for the entire thing to be very open-concept, making for the perfect observation opportunities. Once done, it was time to decorate, and after
two hours of work, this is what the new territories looked like. AC Family, behold! The Jungle Gym in full completion, the new
home kingdom-to-be of our young acrobat ant colony. I just couldn’t wait for our acrobat ants
to move onto this island and start running around. What do you guys think of it? Let me show you around! The island boasts two fat bonsai banyon trees
and driftwood, all of which offers the perfect foraging and running space for our acrobat
ants. The driftwood I chose for this terrarium had
a multitude of holes and hallowed out areas where the ants could nest, if they so chose
to. I tried to create a space that was very topographically
diverse, with lots of interesting places for the ants to climb, explore, hide, and go about
their various activities despite the limited area I had to work with. The entire island is actually comprised of
two pots, to make watering of all the plants easier. I’ve decided to call this the Jungle Gym
because well, acrobat ants. Get it? Alright and now it’s time to move the ants
in! Let’s do this! First, separating the AC Test Tube Portal
and placing it down here, and now to place the test tube somewhere up high in the trees. And Done! And now to remove the cover of the AC Test
Tube Portal and placing the whole thing at a spot where the ants within could easily
find the colony nesting above, and just like that, the ants were in. Let’s watch! It didn’t take long for the ants to begin
wandering outside. I could only imagine how scared, excited,
and/or curious these ants might be feeling at this newfound moment of freedom. You must remember these ants were born and
raised only within the confines of their test tube and Test Tube Portal for their entire
lives, so this sudden open air full of strange sights and smells were definitely a trip for
these ants! These territories were also bioactive. There’s one of the beneficial mites that
would be cleaning up after the ants, eating their leftover food, garbage, and poop. I loved watching the ants running around venturing
further and further into the uncharted expanse of the Jungle Gym. As the ants explored the area around their
nest, they would always quickly report their findings back to the colony. The
ants at the test tube portal were also amazed by the strange new world around them, and
I knew it was only a matter of time before they would connect and reunite with their
colony above. The bravest ants explored the higher areas
of the Jungle Gym, just loving the altitude! The ants had officially fallen in love with
their new home. This test tube would now be the colony’s
hollowed out twig for now. I suspect the ants will continue to live in
here until they feel the driftwood was a more suitable spot for the colony, or perhaps some
other unforeseen nesting space. We’ll just have to see what the ants decide. But now that the ants were officially in,
AC Family, as is our tradition, it was time to offer the ants a house warming gift! Let’s give them a tiny drop of sweet honey,
and you guys will love how happy this drop makes them. Check this out! In no time at all, an ant discovers the drop
of honey. And then a second ant. Watch how cute the ants are as they taste
the honey, and their gasters kinda thump up and down. A third ant comes a long to taste. Mmmmm! The ants take their time filling up their
social stomachs to bring these sweet goods back to the colony to regurgitate up later
for colony distribution and eventually feeding to the larvae and queen back home. But speaking of the nest, guys, what I found
truly amazing was how the ants already were acting as they would in the wild. Have a look! Before the ants kind of never minded the entrance
of their nest, never congregating at the opening, but now, some ants assumed the positions of
nest entrance guards, checking every ant entering through the nest opening, just as I’ve seen
them do in the wild. So interesting that the ants just instinctively
knew there was a need for such a job. Overall, watching the ants enjoying their
new home we made for them, as they warmed up to the space and explored more and more,
feeding, and just doing what they naturally would in the wild, made my ant-loving heart
so full! It made me feel so lucky to be able to witness
something that I knew very few actually have the opportunity to witness. If you simply take the time to look at the
little things in this world, you just might find something sweet, that nobody else had
yet seen. Alright, now at the start of the video, I
mentioned I’d be needing your help and would be asking a very important question, and it’s
this: What should we name this acrobat ant colony? Leave your name suggestions in the comments,
and I will choose my top five favourites for all of us to vote on in a future video. It means so much to me that you guys take
the time to participate in these ant videos and provide suggestions, ideas, and poll entries. It’s awesome to see so many of you guys
leaving comments, SUBSCRIBING to the channel as we approach 5 million subscribers soon,
watching and LIKING every video I put out, and just all around being part of this adventurous
journey of discovery with me, keeping the beloved ants and creatures on the channel
and providing them all they need to live out their best lives. You guys are hands down the best community
on Youtube! It’s awesome to see so many of you giving
ants, these little creatures that most people in the world do not notice, or on the other
side of the spectrum, notice but only want to kill thinking they’re all pests, a chance. The vast majority of ants are important players
in all ecosystems, and many, like our acrobat ants here, still left to be discovered and
learned about, help us realize that ants, like all forms of life are precious, interconnected,
and part of the vast paradise island home, we all call the planet Earth. So until, we return to the Jungle Gym to follow
up on the progress of our unidentified species of acrobat ants, thank you all for watching
and supporting the ants. It’s ant love forever! 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!
