The Horror of the Slaver Ant

everything changed when the slave Nation attacked what used to be a thriving colony is now a captured country slaves do the work serving their new Masters until they die only to be replaced by new victims harvested in brutal raids but let's go back to the beginning [Music] the world war of the ants is claiming millions of lives every day but in the brutal world of ants straight up war is not the only way around 50 ant species practice slavery the most extreme division of labor we don't know how this began but some ant species perfected this cruel trade meet polyogus the most intense of the slaver and tribes there are different species but generally they're four to ten millimeters long with round to blackish bodies and sickle-shaped mandibles polyergus have specialized in slavery so much that they've lost their ability to care for themselves they don't clean build nests care for their brood or feed themselves they only exist for raiding slaves make up 80 to 90 percent of the ants in their colonies so a few hundred polyergus and a single queen control thousands of slave ants we'll summarize and simplify what we know about polyergus into one Grand Story you can find more information in our sources so now let's witness the cruel banality of nature The Raid it all begins on a mild Summer Morning on a sunny field witness this colony of over ten thousand formica ants genetically cousins of polyergus who build a thriving Nest Underground they are a widespread genas some species are good Fighters some great Builders and some cattle Farmers often welcomed by humans because they hunt Vermin that hurt forests nobody noticed the lone polyager Scout that briefly showed up this morning before she bolted away again the attack begins in the early afternoon the Scout returned from her mission to find the formica nests she dances erratically and spreads pheromones that excite and mass recruit more and more ants until a large raiding party of a thousand Warrior s's has formed a close-packed well-organized column up to 10 meters long begins to move as the polyacus raiding party arrives at the formica Colony the attack begins almost immediately dozens of attackers begin digging and clearing up debris from The Nest entrance to make it easier to storm as soon as they're done hundreds of the attackers Rush inside The Defenders vastly outnumber their attackers and our formidable Warriors able to shoot at it but instead of fighting back effectively they seem confused and Scatter rather than fighting back polyergus also seems to be somewhat resistant to the acid sprays of the Defenders and so even if a defense is forming the attackers use their mandibles to pierce and kill there are a few different ideas as to why polygous attacks are so efficient and one of the most fascinating ones is chemical warfare instead of relying on Brute Force they release a propaganda pheromone that makes the Defenders Panic unable to mount an organized defense the attackers have nothing to gain from intense ant-to-end combat other than immense casualties what's more they actually want their victims to survive so that they can be rated again in a few weeks as the raid unfolds the attackers breach deep into the colony looking for their most valuable possession the coronis babies they grabbed the pupae and larvae that will make up the next generation of formica and carry them out of the nest hundreds are abducted and brought back to the polyergus colony in this rate alone well most of them a few unlucky ones are eaten as a sort of snack the surviving victims will be turned into slaves after about an hour The Raid is over and the formica can begin to recover it seems their only strategy is to make even more ants a decent sized Colony can forfeit thousands of pupae in a single raiding season and still survive although in this case while the raid was going on something even more Sinister happened hold that thought though because how are polyergus turning ants into slaves how to brainwash and slaves ants conquered almost the entire planet over 100 million years ago they owe their success to being social animals that perfected chemical communication chemical signals and cues let ants know what their colony needs and what each individual should do and most importantly in this case who is a friend or Foe slave making ants are much less social than other ant species some species miss a lot of the genes other ants have to make communication possible in a sense they are bad at talking to each other so it may be that as polyoga's ancestors started to abduct other ants they lost the ability to collaborate and work together productively soon after the stolen formica Offspring have been brought to the slaver Colony they are progressively covered in polyergus pheromones they are chemically imprinted similar to a duckling who imprints on its mother after birth when the New Slaves hatch they behave as though they are part of the polyogus colony and begin to work for them unconditionally keeping the nest clean caring for the next generation of slaves and Masters hunting for food and feeding their enslavers mouth to mouth this sort of brainwashing goes so far that if they encounter free formica ants in the world they will treat them as animates in a sense they're not true slaves as they serve willingly and show no interest in Freedom it's more like violent abduction and adoption which doesn't make things that much better and as the formica only live for a few months a constant new supply of victims is necessary to survive polyergus can never stop enslaving how to make new slave colonies how are new polyogre's colonies created after all polyerga's workers are so useless that a queen can't start a new Colony without slaves but how does she make slaves without Warriors it turns out there are two main strategies the more dangerous one might unfold during a raid like the one we witnessed before a young polioga's Queen silently follows the raiding party using the chaos of the invasion she's able to find her way to the formica Queen and kill her taking over the shaken Colony although such a victory may be very short-lived polyagers do not tolerate other slaver colonies within their hunting ground they raid each other fiercely too and can destroy the competing colonies nearby so while this tactic sometimes works it is pretty dangerous another young Queen is going for a different strategy she's looking for a full Mica Colony that is further from her birthplace attacking a whole Colony on her own she bolts through an entrance pushing aside confused ants that try to stop her releasing a powerful appeasement pheromone that drives Defenders away she has only a short time window to find the formica Queen deep in the Hostile Nest once she finds her Target both Queens engage in a fight to the death Queen is well equipped with her sharp mandibles she bites and rips into her victim for about half an hour before she finally calms down between her bites she licks the chemical surface of the Dead formica Queen covering herself in her pheromones when she's done with this Macabre ritual for Michael workers approach her subdued by her intense smells they start grooming and feeding her as though pledging their allegiance to their new ruler she still might not be done though for Mike economies often have multiple Queens who all need to be defeated which is not guaranteed often attacking Queens will be stopped by a Phalanx of workers that rip her apart or are defeated in royal battle but if she does manage to kill all the Queens The Colony has been taken over and the enslaved brood will begin to serve a new Queen the usurper she now begins laying eggs that are cared for by her New Slaves until New polyoga's ants hatch that will soon start new raids on neighboring colonies no matter what we humans do quietly below our feet the world war of the ants is Raging with wild and horrible strategies fought by billions of individuals every single day polyergus will continue to hunt for slaves as to stop raiding would be their demise and in the war of the ants there is no giving up we want to explore even more ant species and videos to come but not just ants our planet has so many more wonders to Marvel at and learn about that is if we manage to preserve their habitat and turn the tide on climate change something we're very passionate about at kotskazat and have covered extensively in past videos we've found a partner to turn our dedication into action we'll pay to offset one month of your carbon emissions with the help of our friends from Ren by visiting rendoco and answering a few questions you can find out your personal carbon footprint your first step should be to reduce your footprint but there are limits to that Ren lets you offset the rest of your carbon footprint with a monthly subscription that supports projects that plant trees protect rainforests and remove carbon dioxide from the sky we think it's one of the many puzzle pieces that can make a real difference in the climate crisis once you sign up to make a monthly contribution you'll get pictures and updates from the project you support so you can directly see the impact you're making Rena is completely transparent about how they spend the money and we especially like their rainforest protection project in the Amazon another amazing ecosystem full of wonder we want coming generations to learn about as well wren's project trains indigenous communities to use drones and satellite imagery to detect deforestation helping them protect their rainforest home sign up through ren.co kotskazat to start helping the planet as climate change is close to our hearts we will personally pay for the first month of subscription for the first 200 people to sign up right [Music]

Channel: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Views: 6,819,088

Keywords:

Id: Qsbe1pD8ocE

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 06 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/djbandit]

Description

Everything changed when the slaver nation attacked. What used to be a thriving colony is now a captured country. Slaves do the work, serving their new masters until they die, only to be replaced by new victims harvested in brutal raids.
But let us go back to the beginning…

​

Sources and further reading

https://sites.google.com/view/sources-slaver-ants/?pli=1

[u/jeraflare]

babe wake up new ant video dropped

[u/IC-II0I]

very cool

[u/jokerat]

Ants are my favorite animals, so I love this new video even more.

Ants are so interesting and diverse that Kurzgesagt could fill the whole channel with only ants videos and it still would be fascinating and interesting.

Love it and love to see more ant videos in the future. :)

[u/Incubus-Dao-Emperor]

Awesome Ant Video :)

[u/bishopyorgensen]

The ant videos are my favorite, I'm very jazzed to finally get a new one

[u/AlphaMarker48]

Polyergus seem to be the Dark Eldar of the ant world. I kinda wonder why their high specialization hasn't caused them to go extinct.

[u/Kaenu_Reeves]

ANTTT

[u/-ThisWayUp-]

YAY MORE ANT VIDEOS