Swarm of Ants Flies For The First Time | Empire Of The Desert Ants | BBC Earth

even though the colony is now six years old the nest entrance is still an unassuming hole in the ground but this is now a portal into a magical subterranean world a honey ant a super colony home to several thousand workers and hundreds of honey filled repeats [Music] [Music] [Applause] the Queen now reigns over a formidable force that dominates this part of Horseshoe Canyon together they have built a complex underground city just beneath the surface is a network of chambers and linking tunnels from these a single vertical chimney extends 2 meters down into the concrete hard earth to reach the colonies nerve center this deep the soil is still moist the air cooled despite the soaring surface temperatures this is the very heart of the Queen's Empire others too have been drawn to this underground oasis this beetle has made its way down into the deeper recesses of the labyrinth as it pushes on into the Royal chambers the Imperial Guard immediately attack but their jaws and acid sprays make little impact on it's heavy armor after a while they start to ignore the intruder perhaps the beetle begins to take on the colony smell and no longer arouses the guard suspicions but the ants leave it alone that their peril now passing itself off as a colony member it's true intentions become clear the beetle this big needs lots of food and this nursery chamber is proving to be a rich hunting ground this year the colony has reached a tipping point for the first time in its six-year history there are male as well as female ants in the nest the corral Queen has finally succeeded in producing her first generation of winged princes and princesses soon these winged Royals will fan out across the desert to establish new colonies all they need now is a trigger to send them on their way and that trigger is brewing high in the desert sky the summer rains finally arrived around here it's called the monsoon season these torrential downpours can dump several centimeters of rain in just a few hours the normally hard ground is softened by the deluge [Music] as the day begins to cool the time has finally come for the corral honey ants to put in an appearance workers pour out to secure the perimeter of the nest hole creating a protected launch pad the Queens and much smaller males move up through the tunnels towards the surface and out into the light [Music] still deep underground the Queen won't witness these momentous events but our winged sons and daughters are about to spread the royal line far across the desert [Music]

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 593,568

Keywords: winged ants fly for the first time, flying ants, bbc documentary, bbc, bbcearth, bbc earth, natural world, empire of the desert ants, insects, desert honey ant, ant queen eats, ant colony, ant nest, natural history, bbc ants, winged ants, swarm of ants, ant facts, facts about ants

Id: mMsQOrIhsA8

Length: 6min 10sec (370 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 15 2019