Welcome to Pantdora, my 1000 gallon cloud
rainforest vivarium, a personal biological of mine where I’ve created an entire tropical
ecosystem within glass, full of exotic plants, fungi, and creatures of all kinds, fearsome
and beautiful. But it’s been an insane past two weeks in
the rainforest, which seems to be incessantly changing and evolving before my eyes. But as an observer of this tropical ecosystem,
I’ve learned that Mother Nature always has her own set of rules, and sometimes, natural
law doesn’t quite carry out as expected. It has been a tough week in Pantdora, riddled
in mystery, revelation, and death that I completely didn’t expect. This is the crazy story of how some of my
favourite creatures in my giant cloud rainforest vivarium had lost their lives, but not without
the biggest plot twist that will leave your jaw on the floor! Welcome to the Season 2 premiere of my Ecosystem
Vivarium Series, where it seems chaos reigns supreme in the circle of life, here on the
AntsCanada Ant Channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the
BELL ICON! Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! It was Pantdora’s Age of Arachnida, and
Lady Death Strike, our resident giant huntsman spider was hugging her second egg sac now. This egg sac was a bit of a surprise, because
Lady Death Strike had already given birth to an egg sac which gave rise to a huge team
of babies that I already released into Pantdora, who were now growing up in the forest, feeding
on little insects. But this second egg sac meant another team
of babies were on their way from sperm she saved from her one mating months ago, or it
was possible this egg sac was a dud, full of unfertilized eggs, or another possibility
was that she managed to mate again with another male, while escaped into my home in the last
episode. Whatever the case, I would be keeping my eye
on Lady Death Strike and this new mysterious egg sac. Now, I didn’t know it yet, but this egg
sac wasn’t the only surprise Easter egg, I’d be stumbling upon in the rainforest
this week. Little did I know, I was in for the greatest
surprise. It seemed like a typical day in the rainforest. Up on the rock wall was Smaug, our resident
sun skink, basking under the sun lamps. He was the apex predator of the lands, and
loved being high up where he could survey his kingdom, but ew. Smaug, there’s an earthworm up there! Gross, but weird to see it all way up here… Oh, nevermind. Down the waterfall it went. Yay! Food for the crabs! When not sun basking, Smaug is usually at
ground level hunting for insects all morning, and once full, disappears below ground into
his extensive subterranean burrow. All around him, the main prey animals in the
forest of course were the crickets, of which there was a great abundance! Crickets of all ages from tiny hatchlings
to adults frolicked Pantdora’s lush landscape. The air was full of male cricket crooners,
all hoping to attract females through song, who were either hiding and listening from
afar, or were being actively approached by the chirping males. Those males that got serious ‘rizz’ were
able to mate with a female. It just takes a moment, and once done, the
males deposit their spermatophore, that little white sac, into the females, thereby securing
a new generation of Pantdoran crickets to come. I loved watching the females deposit their
eggs into the soft soils. The females seemed to look super relieved
to lay their eggs using their long ovipositors stabbed into the ground. The crickets were amazing at keeping plants
trimmed, especially the mosses. Apparently, this species of cricket is also
known to eat meat from time to time, but I haven’t seen them eat other insects for
nourishment, at least, not yet. Swarming nearby a female cricket, was a mass
of ants. It was the Terra Raiders, the resident Marauder
Ants. I always loved seeing them out and about because
this colony has truly beat the odds, having stood up against two enemy invasive ant colonies
in the past, like the Dark Horde, the invasive black crazy ants of the lands, who by the
way, were strangely nowhere to be seen now. I could only see a few workers wandering around. They were last seen moving their brood into
the stump, but wherever they were hiding, they must have been laying low in order to
grow their numbers in secret. But, the Terra Raiders were the current ruling
ant species of Pantdora. The interesting thing was that the marauders
left the living crickets alone, but once the adult crickets expired to breathe their last
breaths of air, the marauders were always the first on the scene to clean up, to take
the dying insects home to their nest. The Terra Raiders were the best cleanup crew
for dead insects, and as I found out later, a little too good. Rocksteady, our resident rhino beetle was
on the move heading somewhere. He’s been extra restless these days, and
I wasn’t sure why. The only thing I could think of was that he
was looking for a female, and indeed, I’m still looking for Mrs. Rocksteady. Hang in there, buddy. She’ll be coming soon! Up on the vine, I caught sight of our principal
flyer in Pantdora, the pretty damselfly, and check out how she’s been able to deal with
the periodic rainstorms that blow through. Haha! Clever girl! The rains have interestingly welcomed some
newcomers to the rainforest, newcomers that were neither animals nor plants. Fungi were now seen thriving all over the
place. Have a look! From really small mushrooms growing from the
soils, to other cool orangey mushrooms growing out of the driftwood, other mushrooms growing
within the darkness of wooden caverns, and oyster-type mushrooms underneath the Hallelujah
Tree Stump. Seeing all these mushrooms everywhere was
very promising, as it signified a healthy ecosystem. Some call fungi the dark matter of the biosphere,
we know they’re around and important, but we just don’t completely understand how
yet. We do know that fungi connect root systems
and help with communication of plants, some have formed symbiotic relationships with other
organisms, and some are members of the microbiota within the guts of animals helping with digestion,
including us humans. Fungi are like the glue to an ecosystem, connecting
all lifeforms. I then caught sight of the most significant
herbivore of the rainforest, Stanley, the bush cricket. He was still nestled in this philodendron
plant. I found it strange that he was still here. He had spent the past week here in this spot. Usually, I’d see him somewhere up in the
canopy, particularly at night when he scouts for new leaves to chew up and vines to murder. I suspected that with rising temperatures
due to the approach of summer where I live, he was beginning to be less active and hungry. Interestingly, many animals in my country
go into a sort of hibernation/self-preservation period when temperatures rise, a process known
as estivation, then wake up once the rainy season hits around May when temperatures get
cooler. Rest well, Stanley! Love ya, buddy! But while some creatures were going into hibernation
due to the seasonal change, other creatures were loving the heat and becoming much more
abundant and visible in the rainforest. My greatest repulsion, a land planaria slithered
around the mosses. These were carnivorous flatworms that fed
on tiny insects, and here they were feasting on the abundance of baby crickets, probably
even baby huntsman spiders, and possibly ants. I couldn’t get over how many there were
now in Pantdora, and I wasn’t sure if they even had any natural enemies! I was hoping perhaps the tiny frog I recently
discovered in the last video would eat them? Who knows, but these things needed to be controlled
at some point and I currently didn’t know how to go about doing that. Any ideas, guys? Speaking of worms, in the last episode, I
showed you the black, long thing I suspected was a horsehair worm. Some of you insisted that I remove it, but
I’m sorry; there ain’t no way in hell I’m touching it! It’s still there. I’m just hoping it’s something else and
not a horsehair worm, and just decays there over time. But if there was one creature to completely
explode in numbers to hit the rainforest scene, even more so than the planaria, it was these
guys. A millipede crawled like a robotic toy train
along the rainforest floor in search of decaying material to feed on. I don’t know when it started to happen but
the millipedes seemed to have just exploded out of nowhere! It blew my mind just how many millipedes there
actually were in Pantdora now. What was once an infrequent sighting of these
little millipedes was now a sighting no matter where you looked in the rainforest. I could see them mating, feeding on dead leaf
litter on the forest floor, breaking down pieces of vine fallen from Stanley’s past
meals, even feeding on dying crickets. What’s crazy is that like the planaria,
these millipedes don’t have any natural predators. They’re toxic, producing a tonne of poisonous
substances including hydrochloric acid, hydrogen cyanide, various organic acids, and more,
so nothing dares to eat them, not frogs, not spiders, not even Smaug. So guess for now, it was Pantdora’s Age
of the Millipedes, as well. I then caught sight of the Green Reaper, our
praying mantis, who was hiding in the shadows of the driftwood. I was surprised to see how skinny she was,
seeing as not too long ago she was fat, having eaten a male mantis I tried to introduce her
to so they could mate. Guess she pooped him out already. Oh yeah, and guys, speaking of male mantises,
I have some exciting news to share! Some of you may recall, that I captured another
mantis, that I was hoping to be a male. A lot of you mentioned that based on videos,
she looked like a female. Well, I ended up keeping her anyway, and I’m
so glad I did because the mantis had its final shed, and look at it now! It had wings, but what was most exciting was
that it was much smaller than the Green Reaper, the same size as the male mantis I tried to
introduce. I was so happy to know that it was a male,
or at least, it looked exactly like one to me, only it was green, but in this species
of marbled mantis, they have two colour morphs, a green and a greyish version. But before attempting to mate it with our
female, I had to double check with my mantis expert friend first, and I sent him photos
check out. Meanwhile, I made sure the mantis was well-fed
because if it was male, it would have a very huge and dangerous job ahead! I couldn’t wait to find out the truth about
its sex so I could attempt Mantis Mating number 2, but little did I know, things weren’t
as simple as I’d thought and a huge shock was in store for me very soon. Night fell and all seemed normal in the rainforest. So beautiful and spiritual. I watched a cute small snail sliding along
the glass. I always found snails to be hypnotic in the
way they moved so slowly and gracefully, seeming care-free as they went about in search of
plants to chew on. It found a fern leaf and took a few nibbles
from it. What was super cool was seeing the breathing
mechanism through its shell. Guess this is the equivalent of a diaphragm
in humans, moving air in and out of its body. I truly love snails. But speaking of slimy critters, it looks like
this carpenter ant got caught up in someone’s slime. How weird! Was it slimed by a snail, a land planaria,
a frog? The tree frogs were also out on their regular
hunt for food. One thing I found interesting was that Kermit
here, a male tree frog, had his throat partially inflated. Hmmm… I wondered if before I stepped into the Ant
Room I had missed him singing. If this was the case, it meant that the approaching
summers were also tree frog breeding season, and I knew we could possibly expect some frog
eggs in the pond. Couldn’t wait for that. It was then that I discovered a movement under
the stump. It was termite! How awesome! We have clear visual confirmation now that
the termites are indeed still alive and ok. The termite patrolled the small mounds its
colony was making beneath the stump. I wondered if these small mounds would eventually
grow to massive termite mounds as the colony grew. We’d just have to see, but I was so happy
to know our termites were still alive and well in Pantdora, as they were important players
in our rainforest ecosystem. Lady Death Strike lay in the same spot right
at the front glass of the vivarium, still hugging her egg sac. It was amazing to me how dedicated she was
at ensuring the next generation of spiders successfully hatch, that is, if these eggs
were indeed fertilized. What was weird was that through the moonlight
glow, it looked as though the egg sac was hollow, but it was just probably because the
eggs were still transparent at this point. Through this entire process, Lady Death Strike
would not be eating, only holding onto this egg sac, and running away at any sign of danger. No matter what, she could not let go of this
egg sac, and she would be 100% committed to its protection for the next few weeks until
the spiderlings emerge if ever. Only time would tell. Up high in the canopy, I smiled when I spotted
Stanley. Hey, guess he got hungry and was now back
up in the vines, standing among droves of acrobat ants. I wasn’t used to not seeing Stanley climbing
around at night, and I’d already gotten used to him taking down all the newest plant
shoots and leaf buds sprouting from the vines. I loved hearing the sounds of his jingle bell-type
chirps at night, singing into the darkness in hopes for a female to show up to mate with
him, and indeed, I was checking the windows of the Ant Room every night for females who
may have heard his song from outside. I was determined to eventually find him a
mate, but it seems Mother Nature had other plans for Stanley, because little did I know,
this would be the very last night we would be graced with Stanley’s plant-control services
in Pantdora. A commotion caught my eye on the forest floor. What is that? My heart dropped into my stomach when I realized
what I was looking at. A cricket was eating something rather aggressively,
and though it looked like a dead leaf, I knew it wasn’t. A leg! No… Stanley! A Terra Raider ant major and the cricket were
fighting over the remains of Stanley whose abdomen had been completely consumed. My heart broke watching Stanley’s half eaten
body being thrown around by the cricket. No Stanley! This was not how I imagined him to go. I watched as the ants continued to battle
with the cricket over Stanley’s carcass. The cricket eventually dragged Stanley away
from the ants so it could eat in peace. But that was when a male cricket who at first
wanted to sing to the eating female, decided to chase the female away and take full advantage
of the feast. Poor Stanley! I don’t know exactly how he died. Was he sick? He couldn’t have been bitten by Lady Death
Strike, who was now over by the pond still clutching her egg sac. If she ate half of Stanley, she would have
had to drop her egg sac. I don’t think it was her. Could it have been Smaug, seeing as Stanley
had been hanging out in Smaug’s territory lately? Or could it have been the natural end to his
life? So many unanswered questions, but it hurt
to have to say goodbye to our manly Stanley this way. No. Stanley… "Hey man! It's JP, so I took a look at your photos of
the mantis, and I'm sorry to say but your mantis is a female, not a male. Based on the last segment of the abdomen she
is 100% female. It's possible for mantises to be smaller as
adults if they don't eat as much. Anyway, best of luck. I hope you find a male soon! Peace!" “Hey man! Thank you, JP! I appreciate that. I’ll just have to keep my eye open for a
male, I guess. Ciao!” I checked the leaf litter to see if I could
find any of Stanley’s remains. All I could see was leaf litter now. But then I spotted a peculiar shiny wing in
the soil. Wait… No! The Green Reaper! I refused to believe it. This had to be a wing of a damselfly or something. I looked around, and as I found more and more
pieces of praying mantis body parts, another wing, and a claw, I knew I had to face the
truth. Our Green Reaper had also passed away. The fact that the body parts were scattered
around could have meant she was killed by Smaug or something, or that that the crickets
had simply tore her up and scattered her remains around the vicinity of her death, or both. Could it have been a horsehair worm breaking
out of her in the pond, then crawling onto land where she proceeded to die? The exact cause of death, once again, was
unknown, and I was so sad that I couldn’t say a proper goodbye nor look at her alive
one last time. With the loss of both Stanley and the Green
Reaper, it was definitely a sad, sad week in Pantdora, and I broke down and cried. The next day, I opened Pantdora to place in
some new vines I had collected, to string up in the canopy, to replace all the vines
that Stanley had eaten and destroyed while he was alive, and that was when I saw something
that I completely didn’t expect. Wait what is that? No way! An ootheca! This was a mantis’ egg sac, the Green Reaper’s
egg sac! OMG! Our praying mantis had laid an ootheca before
she died, and after talking to my mantis hobbyist friend JP, apparently egg laying is very physically
taxing on a female mantis, and it is common for female mantises to pass away after laying
an egg sac. JP believed this was most likely the cause
of her death. But now some of you may be thinking: “But
AC, it’s unfertilized! We all watched her eat the male. It’s impossible that the Green Reaper had
mated, right?” Well, AC Family, this isn’t completely accurate. I have an admission. During the filming of the mantis pairing episode
where I attempted to intro the male Grey Reaper to our female Green Reaper, you may recall
the mantises lived together without actually approaching each other for about a day, and
in the moments leading up to the male being eaten by the female, I did film the male’s
approach, but what I didn’t mention, was that there was quite a gap of time between
when the male was here approaching the female and when the male was here and the female
was already facing him, about a 2 hour gap or so. Problem was, I was so busy trying to multitask,
editing the episode at the same time to make the weekend upload, and just kept checking
on the pair every few hours, seeing as they seemed to be moving mere centimetres per hour! But having to multitask like that, meant that
I couldn’t watch the pair through the entire process, and thus, there were several points
when the male could have actually mated with the female without me knowing, and if it did
happen, my guess was it most likely happened between this shot and this shot while I wasn’t
around, or even overnight or early morning while I was still asleep and not around to
catch them in the act. Furthermore, some of you mantis experts commented
that despite the male mantis’ head and upper body being eaten, sometimes the male’s abdomen
is capable of reaching over and fertilizing the female while being eaten, and that sometimes
male mantises pretty much throw themselves at females to be eaten just so they could
reach over and mate, while decapitated. I looked back at the footage and couldn’t
tell if that was actually happening. I had assumed the entire mating attempt had
failed! So as you can see, just like Lady Death Strike’s
egg sac, there was still promise with our Green Reaper’s egg sac. Only time would tell if baby mantises would
hatch from it. Inside, I hoped so. But overall, this entire situation showed
me once again that all of life is involved in a constant cycle. It’s the circle of life, as they call it. We watch animals start young, grow up, mate
and reproduce if they’re lucky, then die to provide life energy to other life forms
on the same cyclic biological journey. As I caught Rocksteady feeding on a piece
of rotting fruit alone, I wondered if perhaps the reason he had been wandering so much lately
was because he was searching for his cricket best friend, whom we would always oddly spot
right by his side wherever he went no matter what he was doing. But sadly, crickets don’t have the same
lifespan as rhino beetles, and it broke my heart to see Rocksteady feeding alone, with
no cricket friend, who had now long passed, by his side this time. The summer temperatures also saw the strange
disappearance of all of Pantdora’s grasshoppers. The green grasshoppers that we watched grow
up were now nowhere to be seen. I began to suspect that the increase in temperatures
due to summer approaching may have marked the natural end to the grasshoppers’ lives,
and perhaps Stanley’s life, and even the mantis’. There are many creatures in the world that
live only for a season, before passing away, bush crickets, grasshoppers, and praying mantises
included. As heartbreaking as this was a reality to
accept, I knew it was necessary. With no grasshoppers and Stanley around, now
all the plants could flourish for the next few months before temperatures cooled down
again, and such creatures start to make a comeback or grow into adulthood. New seasons bring new animals, which bring
new ways for an ecosystem to cycle its nutrients. Life is never static, it’s never owned by
one creature or life form, but borrowed for a particular length in time, then given up,
where it flows back to the system. The nights in Pantrdora just won’t be the
same, without Stanley’s loud jingle bell chirps, but I know, the sounds of jingle bells
will be soon replaced with the calming chorus of tree frogs who will be entering their breeding
season. I will also miss seeing our majestic mantis
swaying in the wind, but hopefully, we’ll get to see tiny Green and Grey Reapers scuttling
around the rainforest, as well as a tonne more huntsman spiders. In terms of the smaller, now confirmed female
mantis, I released her into Pantdora to live out her remaining days within the vivarium
and take our Green Reaper’s place in the rainforest. In no time she captured a cricket and began
to feast. Despite the tragic events, I knew life would
simply go on in Pantdora, and as I was mourning the loss of our beloved critters, I took notice
of how lush Pantdora still was after all this time, different now from when we first began,
but still ever beautiful, majestic, and alive, and it was then that I realized: You know
what? All the creatures that come to die in Pantdora,
never actually leave our rainforest. They become the soil, the plants and the vines,
they become the creatures that eat them, the creatures that eat those creatures, they become
the minerals in the ground water, the gases in the air, and even live on in their offspring. Their spirits remain very much so alive in
the rainforest forever, just in new energetic arrangements. Thank you Stanley, Green Reaper, and grasshoppers
for blessing us with the best of memories. Through you, millions of us around the world
have gained some of the deepest of insights into nature and even ourselves. We’ll see you on the other side. Until then, we’ll miss you greatly. Love, your Creator of Worlds, and the AC Family. I spotted a swarm of ants on the forest floor. They looked like a new species of ant I hadn’t
yet seen in Pantdora… or wait a sec. No, they’re not new. These were the Terra Raiders, but why did
they look different, and not as smooth? As I looked closer, that’s when I realized,
what I was actually looking at. Oh, no! Mites! Vote in my Community Tab to affect this story!
