My Plans For Building an 82-Acre Ant Conservation Park | "Antopia Park"

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Used to love watching this channel but grew so tired of the production style, each video has about 3 minutes of content put into 20 minutes of bullshit 'YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT' and flashbacks. Way too exhausting to watch, which is a shame because I love the idea of the channel.

šŸ‘ļøŽ︎ 35 šŸ‘¤ļøŽ︎ u/P2K13 šŸ“…ļøŽ︎ Mar 27 2021 šŸ—«︎ replies

The second he got rid of colony's because he apparently could not feed them I lost faith , he apparently couldn't do that due to lockdown but has shown his thriving feeder colony's and this is a man with the money to buy land and a house ? I think it was more they didn't bring in the views like the fire ants do and it was more work for him and his helpers

šŸ‘ļøŽ︎ 4 šŸ‘¤ļøŽ︎ u/drumerbeats šŸ“…ļøŽ︎ Mar 28 2021 šŸ—«︎ replies

Ha a cretin

šŸ‘ļøŽ︎ 2 šŸ‘¤ļøŽ︎ u/a_guy_on_Reddit_____ šŸ“…ļøŽ︎ Mar 27 2021 šŸ—«︎ replies
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A couple weeks ago, I made the announcement in our 4 Million subscribers episode that I had purchased for us a lush forest, as well as, an additional 82 acres, i.e. 62 football fields worth of mixed agricultural and remote landscape. We did this for three reasons: First, these lands would become our current and future Nature Reserves/Eco-Sanctuaries for wild ants, as well as the animals that depend on them, to thrive in their native habitats, without having to worry one bit about pesticides, habitat destruction, or harmful human activities to threaten their existence. Basically, it would be our conservation project to help the ants and Mother Nature out a bit! Second, these lands undoubtedly host a tonne of amazing wild ant colonies for us to discover and film along the way, and hopefully teach others how important ants are in the ecosystems of the world, and inspire them to love ants just as much as we do here on the channel. Finally, having our forest and 82 acres of land, gives us a unique opportunity to help contribute to science as we uncover the ant secrets the land holds, which surprisingly enough, we already did twice now within our forest, when we became the first in the world to document new geographic locations of two ant species. Thereā€™s definitely still so much out there for us to discover hiding within the wilderness of our lands, and crossing fingers, I still hope weā€™re able to discover and name a brand new ant species undiscovered by science. But just this week, guys, an even wilder and more crazy idea came to me, that I felt might help take these cool conservation projects of ours, one step further. AC Family, I did some brainstorming, and today I canā€™t wait to show you what I have planned: I want to build a Jurassic Park for Ants, that maybe one day youā€™d be able to visit if all goes well. Promise, no velociraptor ants breaking out and eating everybody, but guys, I want all of you at home to be involved in the creation of our new Ant Conservation Park which if plans do push through, would be open to the public. Welcome to Antopia Park, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel and hit the BELL icon. Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy. Now, I just wanna say that Iā€™m not 100% sold on the idea of an Ant Jurassic Park, just yet, and I even asked you guys what you thought about the whole idea in a community tab post this week, but today Iā€™ll be talking about your mixed reactions, as well as what your Great AC Senate thought about this crazy idea! Iā€™ll also cover all my ideas for our possible future ant park, all the pros and cons of building such a place, weā€™ll also take a sample guided tour through our Ant Park and catch up on the ants living in our Forest, but most important of all, I will be needing all of your help deciding on a few things, so keep on watching until the end. So letā€™s first start with what you guys thought about the idea of creating an Ant Conservation Park open to the public. Prior to brainstorming I decided to run the idea of an Ant Jurassic Park by you guys, posting on my Community Tab: ā€œShould I create an 82-acre 'Jurassic Park for Ants' open to the PUBLIC/TOURISTS?ā€ Hereā€™s what you said: Surprisingly, 75% of you were for the idea, saying youā€™d love to go to a place like that. A quarter of you however, felt it wasnā€™t a good idea, in fear of people or tourists littering or destroying the land of our beloved ants and creatures. Your Great AC Senate, who I also asked, was even more on the fence! With almost half of the AC Senators voting against the idea. Thank you to all who voted and gave your valuable input. I read through all your amazing comments, heard you out, and took all your valuable feedback into consideration, and so here AC Family, is what I came up with for a Jurassic Park for Ants that just might work. OK, so weā€™ve got two large ant properties, each separated by thousands of miles. In fact, the larger property is on an entirely different island. Letā€™s call Antopia which includes our new forest Location A, and our 82 acre plot of land Location B. But both properties will be called Antopia Parkā€¦ OK not the most original name nor logo, but this is tentative for now for the purposes of this video, but feel free to give name suggestions for our future Ant Conservation Park in the comments, so I can choose my favourites for us to vote on in a future video, and design an appropriate logo. Alright so picture this: Just like in the fictional Jurassic Park movie series, we could have two working locations. Antopia, i.e. Location A, could act as our smaller, more localized Antopia Park, and the 82 acres, i.e. Location B, our bigger, large-scale Conservation Ant Park. Now my idea is to first launch Phase 1, where we make Antopia open to visitors first. Then we could see what actually works and what doesnā€™t work out, and apply what we learn to our larger Location B. Now a lot of you were concerned that a large number of tourists would not be good due to littering or destroying of habitat, particularly for Antopia, which is less than half a hectare of land and forest. I agree with this, so hereā€™s what I propose: We start small with Antopia Park Location A. I was thinking visitors could be small groups and by reservation only. An AC Senate member even suggested that only scientific academia be allowed to visit Antopia Park to conduct research. Not sure about that because Iā€™d love for non-scientists to get a chance to learn about ants, too, but how about if we could control the volume of visitors coming in, by making Antopia Park visitations a per booking basis? Then weā€™d better be able to control and monitor the activities of the parkā€™s visitors, perhaps allowing three to five groups of 10 people max per day, and each group have a tour guide accompanying them. What do you guys think of this? Iā€™ll be doing a sample ā€œGuided Tour Through Antopia Parkā€ by yours truly in a sec, so hang tight for that. In terms of Antopia Park Location B, I donā€™t foresee a tonne of tourists traveling there either, because itā€™s truly in a remote area, an almost 3 hr car ride from the closest airport. I think only the most hardcore ant-lovers would be willing to make the trek over to Antopia Park Location B, but if not, I think we could make visitation there also for reservation-only, and control tourist volume and activity that way. Now in terms of overnight stay, I have thought of this, too. Some of you were concerned that building a hotel or other building on the land was counterproductive, as it would necessarily mean we clear natural habitat to make way for a man-made building, and I agree, which is why I propose something else: treehouse villas! So AC Family, get this. Remember how we have many huge trees that make up the canopy in Antopia? Now imagine three to five treehouse villas, whose architecture and look is inspired by weaver ant nests, connected of course by stairs and bridges, and lit by lanterns shaped like weaver ant nests. It might give people a chance to experience what it feels like being weaver ants living high up in the trees. Would you stay at a weaver ant treehouse villa at Antopia Park? Another option is to allow for camping, but perhaps in tents raised off the ground on legs. Of course, our visitors need food and refreshments so at Antopia Park Location A food would need to be prepared at the Ant House for each group. That way we donā€™t need to build a restaurant on Antopia. We could also offer meals from eco-friendly local restaurants that deliver food in recyclable food containers and such. This option wouldnā€™t be feasible for Antopia Park location B, however because there are no restaurants anywhere for miles, so food would need to come from the local farmers who are farming on some of the land, which is actually great because it gives them work and provides them and their families a livelihood and an awesome community purpose. And hereā€™s one final cool idea before we embark on our sample guided tour of Antopia Park. Tell me if youā€™d try eating this! One thing we could offer on the menu are ā€œentomophagy optionsā€, basically food made from insects. Did you know we humans can now make breads, pastas, burgers, hotdogs, chips, snacks, and candies from insects? We could offer deep fried cricket salad, mealworm burgers, and even pizza made with insect dough topped with weaver ant pupae. Now you may think eating insects and ants seems counterintuitive seeing as Antopia Park promotes saving them, but entomophagy, or the eating of insects for food, is actually a better and more sustainable source of protein for humans than the mass produced, hormone and antibiotic-filled meats from livestock. In fact, the mass meat industry is quite destructive to the environment, due to the unnatural surplus of animal waste produced by the livestock which enters the ecosystem, as well as the space needed to farm and process these animals. You simply donā€™t experience these problems with farming insects, plus insects are a healthier protein source nutritionally than red meats. Anyway, all of these ideas seem crazy, Iā€™m sure, but what excites me the most about the whole idea of Antopia Park is the prospect of giving you guys actual guided tours live and in person! Doing this would pretty much be like what Iā€™m doing already through these videos but in real life, and my script would pretty much be different every time, depending on what we actually get to see. So, AC Family, come with me now on a hypothetical tour through Antopia Park Location A, and let me know if this is something youā€™d make the effort to travel for. Ahemā€¦ Good day, fellow ant lovers! Welcome to Antopia Park. Iā€™m your tour guide AntsCanada, and today weā€™re going to trek through our ant forest to do some wild ant spotting. Iā€™d like to remind everyone that littering and smoking are absolutely not allowed anywhere on the park grounds, and we suggest you keep your fingers to yourselves throughout this tour, as there are a tonne of plants, animals, and fungi that can kill you. Please feel free to raise your hand if you have any questions at any point during this tour, and remember to be extra careful not to step on the ants. Alright? Now letā€™s go! Now if you look along the ground and into the leaf litter here youā€™ll spot a trail of Asian marauder ants, known scientifically as Carebara diversa. These ants are found throughout Antopia, and what makes them special are their huge supermajors which specialize in cutting things open and defense. You may even spot some of the smaller minors riding them to save energy. Could you imagine being one of these supermajors having your sisters piggyback riding you all day?! That would be a major dragā€¦ hehe. Now if you listen closely up in the treetops youā€™ll hear the resounding screeching chorus of some very loud insects. Those are cicadas, males singing to attract females. The lifecycle of these cicadas are actually quite amazing. They start off hatching underground from their eggs as nymphs, and the species you hear now spend 17 long years developing underground feeding from tree-sap from roots, and then after their 17 yrs of development, they emerge from the ground and perform their final molt leaving behind their shed skin, which are the empty casings of exoskeletons you see here. The adults that emerge from these skins are beautiful and fully-winged, and fly up to the tree tops to mate and give birth to the next generation of cicadas which will take another 17 yrs to mature. Oh, look here! The final molt is a critical one because itā€™s above ground where the cicada is completely vulnerable to predators, and as you can see here, a mob of weaver ants have managed to catch this molting cicada at just the right time. Poor cicada. I donā€™t know why they wonā€™t just weaver alone! Haha! Speaking of weaver ants, known scientifically as Oecophylla smaragdina, youā€™ll find trails of them all over the forest here at Antopia Park, as theyā€™re one of the top predators as far as ants go, and eat a variety of different insects. Their hanging leaf nests which they create using their larvaeā€™s silk to bind the leaves together, were the inspiration to your treehouse villas that youā€™ll be staying in tonight, and speaking of which the shampoos and soaps available in your bathrooms are eco-friendly, sulfate-free, and organic. In fact, all of Antopia Park is a 100% zero-waste eco-friendly establishment, run via solar energy, and only eco-friendly products used, including the vinegar and baking soda used to clean your toilets and bathtubs, and eco-friendly detergents to clean your bedsheets. Here frequenting the tree tops are Acrobat ants, belonging to the genus Crematogaster. These amazing native ants, named after their ability to walk with their gasters flexed over their heads, are found throughout Antopia Parkā€™s Forest Ravine. Weā€™re actually waiting for an exact species ID on these girls, and weā€™re all crossing our fingers, because thereā€™s a chance they may possibly be a new, undiscovered species. In fact, towards the entrance of the park in the open field, if you looked to the ground, you may have noticed an ant species that is very abundant here in Antopia Park, that we recently discovered a few weeks ago and was a bit of a scientific breakthrough of sorts. They are Meranoplus bicolor, a beautiful ant which we at Antopia Park first discovered to be native to the country. Formerly, scientists hadnā€™t known they existed in this country. They are now forever known here as Ant 555, as theyā€™re the 555th ant to be added to the countryā€™s species list. Wandering into this dried up seasonal creek, if you glance up here in this tree, youā€™ll see yet another scientific discovery we made. Dilobocondyla carinata is their scientific name, and just last week, we were the first to record the species on this island. So as you can see Antopia Park hosts many hidden myrmecological secrets left for all of us to discover. Yes, you have a question Sir? Iā€™m having trouble seeing your name tag, ah Mr. Malcolm! Whatā€™s your question? Yes, hi. Iā€™m just curious. How are you funding Antopia Park? Is this government funded or sustained through donations? Great, question, Sir. Antopia Park is private property of the AntsCanada Ant Channel, and run by its board of directors the AC Family, as well as its stakeholders, known as the AC Senate. We also have a great team of volunteers who are mostly students, that likely hate bugs but just need to rack up the volunteer hours to graduateā€¦ just kidding! I do hear Antopia Park may open up an ā€˜Adopt-a-Forestā€™ program in the future, but what do I know? Iā€™m just a tour guide here, man! Alright, and that concludes our tour of Antopia Park. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and feel free to stop by our gift shop at antscanada.com and pick up any of our ant keeping kits, ant farms, or merch, which will go towards further developing Antopia Park as well as its operation costs. So AC Family what do you guys think? Do you think this Antopia Park idea is feasible? Perhaps the dream is ambitious, but Iā€™ve learned in life, you gotta dream big! If thereā€™s one thing we can learn from the ants we love on this channel, itā€™s that with hard work and a million baby steps, grain by grain, eventually it all adds up, and gradually produces a mountain ant hill. Wouldnā€™t you say? I once read a biography of a random 18 yr old kid who scored his first job in Kansas City over a hundred years ago, as a cartoonist. That kid would later go on to build the multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate known today as the Walt Disney Company. All great things start off small. You know, when I first started this channel almost 12 yrs ago, keeping ants in homemade ant farms, in my little bedroom at my parents house in Canada, I always felt ants were the most amazing creatures on the planet, that probably had a bad rap. They just needed to be shown in a different light, in their true beauty, in their brilliant magnificence, and in the right context. I never imagined 12 yrs later, weā€™d ever be doing large-scale projects like this to help the ants on a more global-scale, but yet here we are. I donā€™t intend on stopping and will keep seeing how far we can go and push the boundaries of ant love. And as far as Iā€™m concerned, you guys are all Ant Love Ambassadors, who have continued to blow me away again and again over the years. From just browsing the comments, to seeing the sheer number of you who watch these videos every week, to seeing your amazing participation in helping me make decisions for the ants, and watching our AC Family grow, itā€™s easy to see just how much ant love exists in you guys, and how much the ants featured in these videos have impacted a lot of you in some way or another, and itā€™s truly an inspiring and humbling thing for a nerdy ant lover like me to witness. If these videos could cause just one person who sees an ant crawling by to not squish it for no reason, that to me, means the channel has done its job successfully. If this is you, thank you for giving ants a chance and for allowing them into your hearts. I do feel Antopia Park, or whatever you think we should call it, could do some really great things for both the ants of the world, as well as ourselves one day, if it ever does become a reality. And until the magical day comes, when I am privileged enough to give you a personal tour through Antopia Park, thank you all for watching and supporting the ants. Itā€™s ant love forever. I received a notification on my mobile. It was a message from Dr. General regarding the Crematogaster ants we sent him from our forest in Antopia. I wondered if he had exciting news to share with us. Did it turn out to be a new undiscovered ant species? Well AC Family, you guys wonā€™t believe the awesome news he had for us regarding the little black Crematogaster ants collected from our Antopian forest. AC Family, did you enjoy todayā€™s episode? Would you visit Antopia Park? Can you guess what awesome news Dr. General had to share with us regarding the Creamatogaster ants from Antopia? I will reveal the answer in next weekā€™s episode. So much nature and ant fun is ahead, so if you havenā€™t yet, what are you waiting for? Come be a part of the exciting ant fun and discovery, and SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL, so you get notified at every upload. Also donā€™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 watch extended play scenes of the ants we saw during our Antopia Park tour. And guys, 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 itā€™s time for the AC Question of the Week. Last week, we asked: Name one layer of a healthy forest. Congratulations to Discoturkey Gamez who answered: The canopy or overstory. Congratulations Discoturkey, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop! In this weekā€™s AC Question of the Week we ask: What is your favourite part of the Antopia Park idea? 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. Itā€™s ant love forever!
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Channel: AntsCanada
Views: 570,698
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: 2020, ants, pets, terrarium, ant farm, antfarm, antscanada, animals, insects, exotic pets, myrmecology, ecology, conservation, earth hour, forest, jurassic park, theme park, mrbeast, inspirational, nature, entomophagy, antopia, treehouse, philanthropy
Id: WwjbtLjmutw
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 21min 12sec (1272 seconds)
Published: Sat Mar 27 2021
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