Years old tropical ant-vivarium, this happened...

for years I've been waiting to finally close the loop on this vivarium telling you its story filled with landscape drama animals and plants of all shapes and sizes this Mega diverse tropical vivarium has been through a lot I hope this video will make it justice and watch until the end to see ant colonies termites frogs lizards tarantulas freshwater crabs and so much more living together in this ecosystem of Madness starting with a cinematic introduction so that you know what you are getting yourself into with epic music to really hype this video up way more than it should fasten your seatbelts foreign foreign [Music] foreign it was not easy to reach a high biodiversity value each year I introduced different ant colonies and organisms to settle in based on what space was left within it throughout the video we will examine what they do above as well Underground and if you want to see more of this make sure to support the channel by liking subscribing Etc thank you very much alright so years ago I had the urge to create the most biodiverse piece of land on Earth and what cooler way to do it than within a vivarium so here I make sure the water system within the tank functions with false bottom and substrate divider but with a little twist to create a lake in the middle of the tank as you can see when water accumulates in the false bottom it will appear in the area filled with sand as it is below the substrate divider I hope you understand what I'm saying by this Pond not only allows for The Aquatic Wildlife but it's Central position in the tank allows a clear view and safe introductions of the many animals to come I really liked it it's a nice landscape addition next I had to make the tank a structurally biodiverse as possible and it was a struggle it was going to take time for me to fill this enormous vivarium with life it looks horrendous at the moment but still there were some animals that actually flew in and colonized these ugly lands this enormous Beetle even laid eggs and a giant grub popped up months after its appearance in the tank pretty cool no it was weird already animals flew in and Hunters inside of vivarium ate them the ecosystem was alive even before I wanted it to it was looking good and next was one of the most groundbreaking introductions in the entire vivarium as a termite Colony their chosen species was globitermis sulfurrias I hope I pronounced that correctly these termites with iridescent yellow soldiers defending the colony have a cool trick up their sleeve when fighting ants observe this poor yellow Soldier fighting off enormous Weaver ants no way is going to make a difference right well by rupturing its skin it puts the poor ant into comfort with an internal liquid that damages it and releases a pheromone recruiting more soldiers making these termites a nightmare to fight with a process called autophysis as you saw I thereafter took a small part of a nest and placed it in the vivarium the termites were of course a bit confused in the beginning but then they soon started plugging in holes and making themselves at home and this was important as they were going to live in this vivarium throughout its entire lifetime these guys are going to be in a lot of videos that you're gonna see now it's a really amazing species to have in a vivarium already I could see some of their fungus Gardens on the ground I mean I was not sure because they mainly feed on wood if any of you know why a non-fungus growing termite would be having fungi in their nest let me know I also put a trap jaw queen ant that I found in one of my flower pots outside unfortunately this was the last time I saw her not everyone makes it in a vivarium her jaw was a bit hard as well so it might be the reason she didn't make it unfortunate but I knew introductions like these were going to be important as if I don't add more Predators the termites were going to take over the tank completely and there we go with the vivarium's first chapter it was not that eventful but not even close to what is to come I was still impressed though as I remember putting out bait to see what animals live in the tank and somehow there was already an established ant colony of small ants they probably lived in one of the introduced plants this colony of red big-headed ants also proved to be one of the most long lasting colonies in the vivarium dominating many niches as they grew in numbers later on they are called big-headed ants because they have a class of work rants called Mages with larger and more muscular Heads This is known as polymorphism within ants talking about polymorphism though I accidentally got a massive karabara diversa and super major in the tank belonging to the species with some of the most insane polymorphisms in entire and Kingdom look at the difference between their workers attacking this termite Soldier a colony of these was soon to be introduced too but that's for later in this video we are now done with chapter one and it involved mainly plant and dirt hitchhikers such as the red big-headed ant colony and then the termite colony and finally other bugs flying into it at night but these first colonizers were soon about to get company and lots of it so let's get to chapter two this chapter involved major additions such as a massive tree trunk soon to be adopted by the termite Colony including the introduction of water absorbing rocks well positioned in front of the Bonsai Cliff tree separating the trunk space from the pond on it grew also a lush plant with unknown identification this rock was also found to be extremely attractive to many different bugs and you will see later on how they live around it amplifying the biodiversity potential in the tank I also introduced a vinegaroon to hunt inside I saw him once a month on average a very shy animal that can spray a vinegar-like substance on you scary looking as well [Laughter] the termites were now also encircling the entire tank with their tunnels consuming in a piece of bark or twig that they could find in the dirt and below their nest their work was becoming more and more visible to me which Chambers and erupting fungus for some reason still as I was placing out new offerings and new species of ant emerged as well now I think they belong to the solenopsis genus I will refer to them as the small yellow ants from now on because they were very successful in this tank not only this but the first mollusks started to appear now too such as this large snail that will be one of the four mothers to an enormous population of snails that will create an orgy community in this tank you just wait also observe its little arm cleaning its shell there it's pretty cool and freaky but yeah this meant that the red big headed ants that were now increasing considerably in numbers were not only alone anymore and the competition for food was on just like in their natural habitat there was also some sign of life in the pond now small beetles swimming around and I think now the biodiversity ball was literally rolling because when I came back after one week of holiday the vivarium was transformed the waters had snails and copepods of many forms and on the water lived red springtails eating the drowning bugs really fascinating and placing food in the vivarium was now also much more entertaining with new yellow snails with a red big-headed ants throwing themselves on the food not only that but less carnivorous offerings such as mango was instantly eaten by termites creating these dark looking tunnels on this mango shell we were now entering chapter three having seen snails appearing a brand new ant colony the pond organically starting to support some biodiversity and the introduction of the vinegaroon so yeah the vivarium was now ready for some new Apex introductions where the current inhabitants were going to need to buckle up and face the new incoming predation and competition yeah you guys better close up that little Gap that yep just one more and oh there you go brilliantly done well done girls but chapter three actually starts with the great termite move from the mound to this trunk you can see their mud tunnels all around it every time I created artificial rain I could also see them expand their empire over ground any tunnel I destroyed had at least one angry Soldier bursting out attacking anything that moves and I understand why since this place was not without perils they often came into contact with the red big-headed ants that frequented these lands too sometimes even hunting them down the trunk was also home to a giant hammerhead worm patrolling the environment for worms and other mollusks to hunt down and eat it was a very gracious animal to look at and it had simply popped up in the vivarium from nowhere I had not introduced it so as all these animals were settling in this was the perfect time to introduce my silver Weaver and Colony this heavenly colony of gracious shining ants they soon started to forage all kinds of vegetation to found their arboreal Nest by weaving leaves together creating a chamber for them to have their colony in and during this foraging they seem to be careless about the red big-headed ants which was wonderful to see both ant colonies being able to live side by side when I saw them bringing out the reproductives with wings I knew they had found a place to found their nest and it was perfectly placed in one of the background trees it took them some time to start weaving their nests together however it was a fascinating process where I first started bringing sticks and pieces of bark on the leaves as such and in this video you can see that they have weaved some of the leaves together The White Silk there and not soon after this had turned into a well-made little Fortress Fortress it was because they had to protect themselves against all these new arachnid Predators as you can see in these videos most of them even started to reproduce because of how successful this vivarium was nevertheless some Weaver ants were caught and these fights often went on for tens of minutes it was discouraging to watch but also reassuring as then I knew the ants had top down pressure controlling their populations and also for some reason here a red big-headed ant went to attack the silver Weaver ant maybe there were enemies way back I hope you can see the small red rocket below the silver weave around there but yeah this was very rip for the ant [Music] [Laughter] next the pond was almost dried up allowing the freshwater snails in the vivarium to surface of it and for the pond to have a more Dynamic environment not allowing one organism to completely take over some stagnant water foreign ly enough the red big-headed ants were scourging a dead Cricket in the dried Pond and I decided to pull a prank on them filling up the water as they were eating enjoy and this is also when the legendary Jesus ant meme was born as one ant simply crossed the water and don't worry I did see them after poor souls crickets were feeding these ants I was not sure if they actually killed them or not but I would understand if they did as the Crickets often actually stole their food I never saw any evidence of this but I'm quite certain the vinegaroon also hunted quite a few of the crickets the small yellow ant colony was also doing good taking maybe one in four offerings I made with the rest being taken by the red big-headed ants there was also a new ant colony in town that I rarely saw called ghost ants because of that transparent gaster they had moved into one of the trees in the vivarium and they were quite shy compared to the other species here you can see one of my offerings as seen fast by a red ant and then by a ghost stand and now you'll see what happens the Ghost ant brings her sisters but then the red ants simply take over but I am sure the ghost ants were eating from other sources and foraging successfully just like our silver Weaver ants lastly I saw this weird larvae wandering around the vivarium it was not the only one and it made me happy to see that larvae was successfully fed and pupated within the vivarium where the adult moths and butterflies could safely fly out from the vivarium contributing to the surrounding wildlife anyways this concludes chapter 3 where we saw the grand termite move introduction of silver Weaver ants Jesus ant and ghost ants chapter 4 includes a pond update with a new aquatic bug inside swimming around this Beetle could create water bubbles underwater for it to breathe with I think which was quite impressive to look at I also put some raw fish inside to see whether other Aquatic bugs were going to show themselves and I could see movement but no larger organisms popped up some pretty cool transparent worms though one weird thing showed itself though this worm with a tube in its protruding from its snout really cool looking thing I'm not entirely sure what it did but here is some tape of it surfacing from below the substrip when the water is added and then it forages around the bottom I guess any ideas on who this might be at some point I also added a fish but I quickly realized that the guy selling it had given me the wrong information and that the fish probably would not make it so I removed it it would probably have eaten everything in the pond as well so maybe not the best idea still talking about the water body though I could now see some other flat worms wandering around the pond most were very small like this one but I also saw other much larger slacks wandering around that probably to moisture themselves Smalls snails too but they seem to be up to something else all huddled up like that as one does I also felt like putting a cucumber underground and seeing what happens time lapsing the cleanup crew living underground hard at work on this green offering of mine and after these countless of animals had really eaten the crap out of this one it was so crazy to see how just all got completely obliterated and a massive void was created in the dirt and this time I also experimented by adding two different sushis inside the vivarium to see which one the red big-headed ants would like including the other organisms living that let's see will it be tuna or salmon place your bets well everyone seemed to enjoy the salmon even more quite fascinating I wonder why this is after this feeding Fiesta it was time to introduce a colony of small Trap giants after that introduction I think I saw one worker per month because of their small size small colony and foraging behavior only looking for prey in dark places such as in leaf litter Etc but I could observe them moving in fast starting by digging at the most obvious place of them all just at the entrance of the artificial Nest but then after a while they chose to make their nest under the moist stone I'd put at the beginning of this video these guys also hunt termites and watching a time lapse of them moving out made me realize how timely this introduction was seeing holes of termites digging just on the ground finishing up chapter four we saw a new Pond biodiversity snails and slugs and flatworms by the pond salmon preference over tuna and introduction of the mini Trap Jaws so starting chapter 5 we can now enjoy the biodiversity and abundance of animals inside a bit let's have a look at what pops up when I place this piece of meat here and clearly we can already be entertained by what is within but this is maybe a 20 power of what is to come I wanted more more biodiversity and more biodiversity it was dinosaur ants these huge Asian ants were going to be the largest ants in the vivarium opportunistic I expected these guys to scavenge and Hunt anything providing entertaining feeding frenzies and behavior such as tandem running as you can see these two aren't doing shortly already following each other it took them seconds to figure out that they could move and soon the Box flooded with ants and brood moving out under the box hopefully digging below the hammerhead worm calmly observed from afar and it made me wonder how the vivarium inhabitants were going to take this introduction of animals the hammerhead worm seemed indifferent though and the snails also seemed quite indifferent not caring too much about their presence I did however see a sneaky trail of small yellow ants leading to a dead dinosaur and worker I think and I hope it died of natural causes and these are yellow ants are just Scavenging on it and not that it had been killed by the smaller ants nevertheless it was now clear that they were moving into the piece of wood below the Box and just like that this colony was introduced to its new kingdom wanting to really take over this tank they also made a satellite Nest across to the pond where the entrance looked like a someone had shot a bullet into the ground and funnily enough it was also situated just below the Weaver ant nest these ants are interesting as they don't have any Queens in the colony all workers are fertile upon birth where one dominant female called the gamergate sterilizes their closing workers by mutilating their vestigial Wing buds the infertile workers called Kalos will then work loyally for their gamma gate then the gamma gate is only replaced when she dies of natural causes these are also primitive ants and I could funny enough observe them bathing themselves in Honey in order to bring it back to the nest probably because they're lacking a social stomach to regurgitate ingested honey to their nest mates I'm not sure about that though but it finally felt like it had some large Predators inside calling them the lionesses of the vivarium lionesses or not though they were matched equally by either large forces of smaller ants or big slimy snails but it felt like an even playing around absolutely entertaining to the maximum these feeding offerings were quite key for me to actually understand what was happening in the tank so here is a good example with a red big headed ant worker feeding and a small shy ant comes up to take a piece for itself I have no idea what species this was and for example how dominant it was but this is why we have the vivarium let's observe both species clash and the lone work it quickly exits not dominant then what was this ant species and where were they nesting miraculously shortly after recording this video I found the entire Colony surfacing as I was watering the termite infested trunk they were living amongst abandoned or invaded termite tunnels that is so cool the termite's allowing these guys to actually found a nest within the vivarium showing how everything is so interdependent now ending chapter 5 it was a simple twofold one covering the important introduction of the dinosaur ants and the discovery of Cheyenne in the vivarium but then something caught my eye that I really did not want to see and Argentine and worker this ant species except for beating France in the world cup is incredibly invasive and easily ousts any competition including our dear colonies of ants inside the vivarium so not soon after I could see their brood bordering the glass in the vivarium they had moved in terrible terrible news I could now see them aggressively bully other ant species too such as this worker from the Cheyenne Colony getting harassed by an Argent Thailand worker it is similar to what the red big-headed ants did before but these guys are not native and routinely overwhelming ecosystems so this was very unpleasant for me to see but they did do some cool stuff though assembling sand around plants like this it was very puzzling at first and since I saw them as invasive I quickly destroyed their structures but to my surprise I saw aphids Within These sandcastles meaning that these ingenious ants were peering surface plants to protect their aphids absolutely stunning Discovery I must say but to vivarium so far went on as usual where my dear red springtails were daily consuming fungal and bacterial colonies all over the tank was quite marvelous to look at foreign I will now give you some more example on when food offerings actually taught me something about what is happening in the vivarian taking this egg for example frequented by two ant species even a red springtail and then snails of course lots of them where one even drowned in the egg that's the first lesson snails can run in eggs pretty cool I had no bloody idea that was even possible and look at those slugs wondering why there is a snail stuck in the egg okay I'm getting sidetracked now lesson number two however was how flies managed to capitalize on this Feast by laying eggs in the egg causing worms to enclose becoming prey for the many ant species inside and cool enough different fly species managed to do this causing massive fly larvae to pop up on different sizes showcasing something very disgusting yet I mean I enjoyed watching it it was quite cool flies were all over my chicken offering too however this time there was another surprising guest next to the red big-headed ant there there is a termite tunnel with a soldier peeking out these termites were carnivorous I could not believe this how is this possible aren't they supposed to be eating wooden stuff any idea why this might happen maybe the fibers in the exterior layer of the chicken is attractive or something I'm not really sure concluding chapter 6 we discovered the argentinians and their Great Sand Castles and how snails can drown in an egg and also how termites enjoy eating chicken having seen all my offerings in the past chapter you could imagine that weather replaced became a massive biodiversity hotspot and you are correct there was always tons of animals foraging around they're hoping to discover a new source of food and predators hoping to catch those looking for it the soil was moving it therefore made sense that the dinosaur ants started to build another satellite Nest right next to this place it was lots of fun to see them gather anything that could get their mandibles on and bring it to create some sort of Dome entrance to their nest situated under the moist Stone just like the mini Trap giants did before considering that probably their nest is down there as well it becomes a bit you know crammed but I think they'll make it this definitely helped them greatly as it made it quicker for them to find and gather food that I placed just in front there looking at this and grabbing some apple you can understand how this actually works as it swiftly carries it back to the satellite nest comparing this to the ants carrying the food all the way to the main nest on the other side of the pond the main nests of course needed food especially to feed a gamma gate on the larvae so this long route was still very frequented by the ants but getting there first was very important as the red big-headed ants were never far behind neither were the termites but they often got absolutely destroyed by spiders of all sorts as the dinosaur ants were building stuff on the ground the Weaver ants had done brilliantly up in the trees having natural flights letting their winged reproductives fly out but I was worried about them still as I never saw them feed with the rest of the vivarium cohort except you know a few wandering forages by the pond for example but they really didn't do anything else than clean themselves therefore I decided to feed them directly close to their nests which was a massive mistake as now the worst nightmare had happened the Argentine ants had made it there probably since it's out of bounds for the dominant red big-headed ants and had destroyed the silver Weaver ant nest no I quickly removed the nest from the vivarium trying to save them but it was too late only a worker and a reproductive remained they had a good run though living in the pivarium for one and a half years sadly it could not be more dang argentinians the red big-headed ants were safe and strong though always showing up for food and taking down many termites here and there and the small yellow ants were also stronger than ever creating long trails to food from their nest sometimes I think also to transport brood between satellite nests they were long with great traffic I thought it was super impressive can't believe they have done so well in the vivarium I was so proud and as previously seen and mentioned the dinosaur ants were also doing great here you can find them building some stuff on their main nest and they could without any problem feed next to the more dominant red big-headed ants and other vivarium friends and this was very important but there was one scary moment where they actually made me worry about their survival as I woke up with a bunch of them drowned in the pond flabbergasted I wonder what happened worse even this was still ongoing as I could see them drowning themselves in the present what the hell worst of all was that when I tried to save them they just wanted to drown this suicidal Behavior was unprecedented in the tank and made me worry about their Mental Health but in retrospect I think it was a collective response to our colony-wide pandemic where the infected ants simply wanted to drown to avoid infecting others or that a parasite controlled their brain who knows my friend thought the ants wanted to challenge Michael Phelps in the Olympics good luck and but I'm not sure you'll make it there [Music] but as a counter response to this theoretical pandemic the dinosaur ants moved their main Nest into this bonsai tree here it was absolutely insane and I loved the new location the move was busy and I was once again impressed by my aunt's ingenuity getting building materials up these walls was not obvious and the construction went on for a week they moved all kinds of weird pieces up there but it seemed to work in some miraculous way have a look at this and carrying some shells and then apparently just placing it by the entrance and for them it makes sense for me I'm just what although I have to say that I'm quite certain this piece that was not planned because this ant was trying to put a snail living snail as a building block within their nest so having a moving home is probably not the way to go and you know it's not nice behavior we can now conclude chapter 7 with the dinosaur ants expansion into a satellite Nest the death of the silver Weaver and Colony the drowning dinosaur ants and how they then moved into the bonsai tree eventful chapter I must say but moving on the newly inhabited Bonsai Cliff tree was also placed where the termites foraged I thought initially this would cause clashes but both species seem to completely be uninterested in each other which was great news closer to the termite Nest at the trunk the red big-headed ants were still cautious as were the termites where their columns were heavily guarded with yellow soldiers foreign but I have to tell you that now the termites were at it this entire trunk was covered in tunnels with Incredible protruding structures on top of it you just see and wait here I could not allow them to escape so I told God to pee or rain down on them which caused some you know architectural flaws to be exposed let's say but some of them were absolutely ridiculous I don't know why they try to escape in this manner or if it was for ventilation but I could just not have it I'm very sorry guys ridiculous or not though they did help ant colonies with their nutshell fights as you can see these winged queen ant reproductives getting sent off into the sky I was really happy for the termites they had made their cozy Kingdom safely placed right next to the valley of offerings teeming with life and Giants and when I speak of giants I actually mean Giants could you imagine being a termite and seeing you know a massive slug just wandering through like this I very much enjoyed watching the bugs all together feast day and night there even the dinosaur ants had to be careful now though as some spiders grew larger and could actually take them down the dinosaur ants moved even more brood to the Bonsai Cliff Fortress now I could see them trailing brood up there in the masses and in the background I could also see the hammerhead worm that had fragmented in other words reproduced as these guys can simply split into two pieces and one side grows out a hind pot and the other a hammerhead such as in this case you can see that the Hammerhead is developing all parts of the vivarium were now blooming look at this Barren landscape full of mollusks and other bugs wandering around one night I even saw a winged reproductive male from the dinosaur ant colony they supposed to fertilize the gamergate of any Colony he manages to find and talking about ant reproductives as I watered the termite trunk I saw this shy ant colony surface from the termite tunnel nest and managed to see their Queen there she is with a slightly larger gaster this is very rare in a vivarium setup to see the queen so I was so excited closing up chapter 8 we have now seen termite skyscrapers and what they give to the vivarium hammerhead worm reproduction and the appearance of the shy ant Queen how about that and next we will start looking a bit more at the slimy side of the tank as these guys often group up to either huddle or race as you can see these two guys who do you think will win but most of all these slimy friends they enjoy just one single thing and that is eating everything they never forget to share some of it with our red big-headed ants though but they always show up and they always eat so much but what I like about them the most is that they are so omnipresent as I said always showing off some action so here I was filming some argentinians and what do you know all of a sudden tons of them emerge from a cave under the moist Rock looking like a super sci-fi invasion of snails taking over the world moving on everything grew inside the vivarium now as well looking at this mango seed that simply created a giant plant from nowhere I have to confess that I'm now distracting you about what this chapter actually is going to be about and it is something darker my greatest single mistake in this vivarium introducing a colony of army ants inside I had years ago caught this beautiful Asian army and queen and she was massive as you can see compared to this smaller ant Queen and she now had a massive colony and my plan was to introduce her and the colony to the vivarium but to my despair the stressed workers during the move had decapitated her legs and the poor Queen was doomed and to make things worse the rest of the colony then started circulating the tank endlessly in what is called an ant Mill where the army ants endlessly walk in a circle of reinforced pheromon trails until death caused by exhaustion and that was it one of my dream and species had within three days been put into the vivarium and spat out dead this is the reality of this way of keeping animals its naturalistic nature which is inherently darwinistic but this was just bad luck I was so bummed by this but now ending a sad chapter 9 having seen many snails a growing mango tree and a massive failed introduction of Asian army ants inside the vivarium chapter 10. oh my God if you're still hanging in there well done because it's only uphill from here as we are nearing the end of the video having such an overall success with the ecosystem on a bug level I thought it was time to close the loop by adding some apex predators large non-arthropod once and in this case a bloody frog this frog was well received by the community and I hope this top-down predation Edition could help fight middle tier Predators from causing too much pressure on the herbivores and the detribles in the vivarium and the pond now was so bioactive but I could not help but notice it had gotten darker and you know looked more like a swamp than a pond and this was perfect for a new Macker inhabitant that now had terraformed it as much as he wanted and also created some deep tunnels to create some sort of Lair you know the culprit was a new fresh water crab and now the vivarium was perfect I could just not optimize it any further just have a look at the flat worm diversity within none of them are introduced on purpose but they're just living their life in there in parallel to each other and everything else and they were probably really important keeping worm and snail populations in Czech inside but just as everything was at its best I had to leave the country where this riverine was and sadly enough this tropical vivarium has been totally destroyed now it felt like a criminal activity to dig everything up but it had to be done I will not show you the most of the damages because I honestly could not bear you know see this again but all animals will return more or less safely into nature the ant colonies were hard to transport though as you could imagine but we should forever cherish this vivarium's story and the organisms within that told us this throughout this hour-long documentary this video will be my Christmas gift to you and if you want to see more of my temperate large vivarium that is quite similar to this one by the European version and who knows maybe I will move back to the tropics and make another one like this um you should actually you know subscribe hopefully thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a fantastic day [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Nordic Ants

Views: 1,839,587

Keywords: Antkeeping

Id: ONg9D6Yn3-U

Length: 57min 46sec (3466 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 25 2022