Mark my words AC Family, if this ant that
we filmed last week turns out to be Meranoplus bicolor, aside from the epicness of putting
it on the global scientific ant map, I declare that one of these days, we will stumble upon
a brand new ant species. This I promise you, and I will continue to
send any cool, suspect ant specimens we find in Antopia to Dr. General and his team, so
we could hopefully one day name a species of ant Acfamilius, after all of us, AC Family! But meanwhile, now that the samples were being
examined by the taxonomic pros, it was now time for us to have a closer look at our mystery
ants here. I had so many questions, like what were they
like, what did they eat, were they friendly or aggressive, outgoing or shy, and how could
we find a queen so we could try keeping these ants we made ant history with. I went back to the nest and went in with my
lens. Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel, and hit the
BELL ICON! Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy! I have to be honest, guys: There’s one very
big detail that I left out in last week’s episode, about these newly discovered ants
that we’re going to take a closer look at today, which I’ve waited until this week
to reveal to you, for a very special reason. Sorry for all the vague talk, guys but trust
me: I’ll explain everything coming up, but first, I do have some amazing news! My ant biologist friend Dr. General and his
team have examined the specimens at their lab of the ant we’ve tentatively named Ant
#555, that we discovered two weeks ago in my yard, and I’m pleased to announce that
they have determined whether our Ant #555 is a brand new ant species previously undocumented
by science, or if it is Meranoplus bicolor of which we, the AC Family, just happened
to be the first to discover exists in my country. Now regardless of the result, both outcomes
were exciting, but I think you guys will be thrilled by the end of this video, as there’s
a crazy plot twist that may get you shouting in excitement, as I was, as well as members
of your AC Senate, who already know the big news! I’m also going to be needing your participation
and input on something major so stay tuned for that, too! Now, let’s get to it. Waiting for word from Dr. General was truly
a mission for me! I think I checked my email and mobile every
5 mins, every single day for a message from him relaying the big news I was hoping for. Eventually, I realized I needed to relax and
pass the time in a more constructive and less manic manner, so I decided to visit the nest
of our Ant #555 that I managed to locate in our last episode, to observe what these mystery
ants were like. If it turns out we actually discovered a new
species of ant, I wanted us to also be the first to discover what they were like. Welcome everyone to Antopia, the yard on which
we are building our future Ant House. Yes, kinda like a Bat Cave, but more like
an Ant Cave, I guess, which will house our various current and future pet ant colonies,
arachnids, amphibians, and reptiles on this channel. You can follow the entire Ant House and Antopia
storyline from the start here, after watching this video. I truly can’t wait for us to move in here,
so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the channel to be part of this new ant chapter. But not too far from the Ant House, within
a small patch of soil and grass, lay the home base of Ant #555. Check out how awesome these ants are! It took me a long time for me to actually
locate the exact spot of the nest of Ant #555, because for one thing these ants are pretty
small. They weren’t like weaver ants which are
large and bright orange in colour. They were very well camouflaged and you wouldn’t
think a black and red ant with long hairs and spikes would camouflage well, but examining
the habitat of these ants, you could appreciate how the recurring colour and texture palette
of blacks, reds, and hairs from the grass and ground, made these ants perfect ant chameleons
in this domain. Now in our previous episodes, we already saw
how unbelievably beautiful these ants are, with their contrasting black heads and gasters,
red thorax decked out with crazy battle spines, adorable beady eyes, and long fuzzy hairs. But that was a single ant on its own. I was truly surprised to discover, however
that our Ant #555 was even more beautiful when seen as a group! When I first spotted their nest, I approached
it with caution. I didn’t want to scare them or disturb whatever
it was they were doing. I had no idea if they were shy, aggressive,
if they stung like fire ants, or what. But the first thing I did notice was just
how visually gratifying they were, seen working as a colony right at their inconspicuous ant
hills. They were just magical to watch. I don’t know if it was their body shape
and look, or the way they seemed to glide in a cute way over the surface of the ground,
or if it was their steadfast industrious and productive attitude that made them so satisfying
to watch, but something about these ants was just intriguing, and I found myself watching
them for hours, as they diligently carried grains of earth from within their burrow to
dump onto the outer walls of their ant hill. Have you seen such an adorable ant, AC Family? It made me excited to think about the possibility
that we discovered them! During my ant watching session, I noticed
a few things. First, Ant #555 was not aggressive to me anyway. In fact, if they sensed I was near, for instance
when I touched a nearby leaf or something, they would suddenly freeze in position and
act unalive. Hehe! It was pretty adorable, actually, and a great
opportunity to film them! Now just because they didn’t seem aggressive
and enjoyed playing dead as a tactic for survival, I learned that it didn’t mean these ants
were pansies! I was shocked to see the ants had killed a
fire ant and was bringing it home to eat! As we all know on this channel, fire ants
are as aggressive as they get, so it was good to know that Ant #555 was savage when it needed
to be! Also very assuring to see them killing fire
ants because fire ants are invasive. Go Team Natives! In terms of diet, other than fire ants, I
noticed the ants loved to eat sweets, like this sweet jelly I gave them, as well as small
insects they managed to catch, like this small green critter that this ant is carrying. They also seemed to hang out around plant
insects, like these scale insects you see here, so perhaps the ants were also tending
them as ‘ant cows’, drinking the sweet honeydew they excrete as a byproduct, which
as you may know as seen in previous episodes, many ant species like to do. Now here’s a hilarious scene that I managed
to film: Watch as these two ants mobilize to carry a fellow worker ant somewhere. Now I’ve seen this happen in nearly every
ant species I’ve kept in captivity. I’m not actually sure why ants do this,
but I suspect that these ants that literally get picked up and carried around, are either
lost, or are young, confused, or possibly defiant and don’t want to follow what their
fellow ants are trying to get them to do, so what happens is these older ants come along
and literally pick up these young ants and carry them to where they need to be. I’ve even seen this happen with workers
carrying their queens in times of danger when she’s not willing to run to safety with
them. It’s almost like young puppies or kittens,
where by grabbing an ant by the neck, there’s this sort of “off” button, which causes
the ant to curl up into fetal position, making them easier to transport. I’m certain all of you fellow ant keepers
out there have seen this behaviour with your ants and know exactly what I’m talking about. Speaking of which, of course, keeping a colony
of these ants was definitely on my mind, but digging these girls up from the ground was
not something I was willing to risk doing. There was a high chance I’d injure the queen
while excavating, and for all I know, this colony could be huge and its nest could be
totally deep into the ground, or perhaps this was just a satellite nest and their mother
nest was somewhere else. In my mind, the best way to keep a colony
of Ant #555, was to wait for their nuptial flight, whenever that would be. By the way, AC Family speaking of nuptial
flights, for many of you in the North America and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere,
winter will be coming to a close now which means the first round of nuptial flights of
the year are just around the corner, and I know you ant keepers are celebrating as your
ants are waking up from hibernation now, so if ant keeping is something you’re looking
into trying out or doing this year, I highly recommend you pick up any of our pro AC Gear
Packs and starter kits at antscanada.com which have everything you need to get started in
ant keeping. I’d love for you guys to keep pet ants with
me, and in the same setups. But whatever the case, I told myself I’d
keep an eye open every time I’d visit the Ant House, for a mated queen wandering on
the ground so I could start an ant colony of Ant #555 from scratch. But little did I know, the name Ant #555 was
about to be no more. OMG! It was Dr. General. “Good morning, AntsCanada,” he wrote. “I am officially confirming my previous
determination. It is indeed Meranoplus bicolor. Congrats for your exciting find. You have added species #555 to the country’s
species list.” So, according to the ant pros, turns out these
ants were in fact Meranoplus bicolor, and we didn’t discover a new species. They were first discovered way back in 1844,
but we were the first to discover they existed in my country which was still awesome and
exciting! But then I had a follow up question, because
some of you brought up the prospect of this possibly being a subspecies of Meranoplus
bicolor, which would also mean that maybe we discovered a new subspecies? “Hi Dr. General, Wow! This is very exciting!”, I wrote back. “I will surely announce this in this week’s
episode. Our subscribers have been super eager to hear
back on the species confirmation and they will love this news! Thank you. However I do have a follow up question: What
are the chances that this is a Meranoplus bicolor subspecies?” His reply was quite interesting. “The chance is very slim because subspecies
designation is discouraged among ant taxonomists. The unofficial rule for the revision or study
of a genus is subspecies names must be either sunk, meaning given the same species name
as an already existing species, or raised to species status, meaning given an entirely
different and new species name.” So basically he said the ant taxonomic community
tries as much as possible to not create ant subspecies names, and to just either lump
it in with an already known species or call it something entirely new as a new species. He went on to mention that as a result there
have been very few subspecies described in the past 50 or so years in myrmecology. So, guess our mystery ants here are no longer
a mystery. It has been confirmed that they are Meranoplus
bicolor, the newest ant to be documented in my country. Yay! Still a cause for celebration that we made
this ant discovery, and as we saw in last week’s episode the odds of us finding a
brand new undiscovered ant species if we continue to keep looking are pretty good! Let’s cross our fingers, guys, and hope
we do find a new species and that we do find a newly mated queen Meranoplus bicolor ant
so we can keep a colony of them! I have to research and find out when Meranoplus
bicolor have their nuptial flights in other countries they exist so I know when to possibly
look for one in my country. Isn’t it amazing that info on this ant where
I live is pretty much non-existent? I definitely feel a special attachment to
these ants because of the fact that we put them at a new location of the global map,
how about you? Our geographical record will eventually be
showing up on Antwiki and Antweb.org, and I’ll be putting links to those in the description
box when they’re ready. But now speaking of us having a special attachment
to this ant, I mentioned at the start of this video that I am going to need your help, AC
Family. I feel these ants deserve an official name
on this channel. In our last episode you guys voted on a name
for the Marauder ant population of Antopia, and due to popular vote, the official Marauder
Ant population of Antopia will from now on forever be the Spartans. I love that name, AC Council! Thank you to all who voted last week. But this time, I think our Meranoplus bicolor
ants deserve a name, too. It needs to be a good one because of how special
they are to us. So now I ask: what should we name this wild
colony and population of Meranoplus bicolor? Leave your name suggestions in the comments,
and I will choose my Top 5 favourites for all of us to VOTE on as a community in a future
video. Alright, so also at the start of this video,
I mentioned there was a key detail about these Meranoplus bicolor ants that I had to leave
out and that there would be a huge plot twist that would get you shouting. Well, that detail is this. The ant nest of the Meranoplus bicolor ants
here was not actually found in my yard, but just next door in the neighbouring yard. Now this neighbouring yard was vacant, and
upon exploring its more forested areas, I was surprised to discover that it actually
had some really unique habitat and microclimates, that were different from our current Ant House
yard of Antopia, and furthermore to my surprise, I also noticed a tonne of different ant species
were living there that I didn’t recognize. It was almost like a new sister dimension
of Antopia, that was waiting with its own set of secrets and ants for us to discover. Now it’s a big rule of thumb that ant keepers
shouldn’t be anting on private property, and in fact biologists usually need to acquire
permits when studying or collecting ants on private and even public property. Such laws also apply to ant keepers like us,
and though nobody owned this very lush land full of trees, plants, and strange ants, it
still didn’t feel right for me to be on that vast vacant lot, filming the Meranoplus
bicolor nest, collecting a newly mated queen if I ever found one there, or wandering the
property in search of new ant species. But getting a permit seemed like such a hassle,
so I stopped to think for a moment and the craziest thing occurred to me. AC Family, I think you’ll love what I have
to say next. So after checking the subscriber count this
week, I realized that our next episode needed to be big and ultimately celebratory, because
we would be hitting our big 4 million subscribers milestone any day now, if we haven’t already
by the time you all are watching this video. Our 4M Subs episode needed to top all our
past subscriber milestone videos, because you guys are currently the biggest and best
ant-loving community you’ve ever been, and I felt you guys deserved something truly big. And so AC Family, after thinking about it
for a long while, and the prospect of us possibly finding a brand new ant species somewhere
in that lush, ant-filled forest of the new lot taunting my imagination, a totally crazy
idea came to me that I think you guys would truly love. This next major event on the channel was going
to be epic and truly kick this ongoing tale of Antopia up a notch. AC Family, can you read my mind? Do you know what’s coming up next? Did I not say there would be a plot twist? You won’t want to miss this absolutely Mr.
Beast-levels crazy idea I have ahead, so if you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for? Do be a part of all this ant fun and SMASH
that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload. Also don’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 random scenes of our Meranoplus bicolor ants at their
nest and going about their business, as well as a clue to my grand ant idea coming up in
the next episode. Go check it out and try to keep my secret
underwraps until next week! 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 it’s time for the AC Question of
the Week. Last week, we asked: What would you name our mystery ant
if it turns out to be an undiscovered species? There was no correct answer to this but I
did choose at random, so congratulations to Jarrett Munro who answered: Antucus canucus jarretticus Congratulations Jarrett, you just won a free
Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop! In this week’s AC Question of the Week we
ask: Why was it assuring to see that the
mystery ants were eating fire ants? 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. It’s ant love forever!
