April 3, 2025 • 58 mins
Exciting News for Ant Enthusiasts!
Join us on the next episode of Calling All Creatures, where we dive deep into the incredible world of ants! My special guest, Zachary Liu, a myrmecologist and professional ant farmer, will share fascinating insights about ant behavior, colony dynamics, and what it takes to cultivate thriving ant farms.
Whether you're a seasoned ant keeper or just curious about these tiny but mighty creatures, this is an episode you won't want to miss!
Stay tuned and get ready to explore the underground world of ants like never before!
Join us on the next episode of Calling All Creatures, where we dive deep into the incredible world of ants! My special guest, Zachary Liu, a myrmecologist and professional ant farmer, will share fascinating insights about ant behavior, colony dynamics, and what it takes to cultivate thriving ant farms.
Whether you're a seasoned ant keeper or just curious about these tiny but mighty creatures, this is an episode you won't want to miss!
Stay tuned and get ready to explore the underground world of ants like never before!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Believing everybody, and welcome to you calling our creatures. As
many of you already know, I am your host lord,
and tonight we have a very interesting podcast about a
very little creature in the animal animal Kingdom. But me
and that little creature can do all sorts of things,
and it's really cool. Some of the things that you
(00:22):
guys are gonna learn about these guys tonight, I'm talking
about ants and the podcast title is Ants the Kindergary
Hills And let me tell you, these little guys can
do some stuff. But I have uh Zachary move along
with me tonight. He is a normacologist and also a
professional aunt farmer ward show. We have him tell us
(00:43):
maybe a little bit more about his boy cause that's
pretty interesting in itself, and uh, he's gonna give us
all sorts of information about ants and all the really
cool things that are. But a lot of you don't
know about ants because I shorely learned a whole lot. Uh.
Towards the end, I'll help Zach go aheading about So
he's on YouTube channel too, so if you guys want
(01:03):
to really learned a whole lot about ants, you can
go watch his YouTube videos as well. They're pretty cool.
So anyway, with that being said, as Zach, thank you
so much for being on the podcast tonight. I really
appreciate it because I'm looking forward to learning a lot more.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
About ants, no worries.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Thank you so much, and thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, that's awesome. So why didn't you just go ahead
and tell us a little bit about yourself? I mean,
how did you first get interested in insects and ants
and stuff?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah? Great, So, first off, I'm a mormorrocologist at Michael
University here in Montreal, Canada. And really for me, insects
it's always been something that I've worked into my life.
Like my mom, she was born in an early real
part of China, and like the story goes that she
(01:53):
was really afraid of bugs. And then so when I
was born here in Canada, she want to make sure
that it wasn't something that affects me because for her
bugs work in China. So when I was a little kid,
she'd I guess, like after the bedtime story, she'd pull
like an encyclopedia, flipped to the insects section and kind
(02:14):
of get me used to everything. And then so kind
of all my life, I've been I've worked with insights,
I've worked with the nature. Generally, I've most of the
smaller animals, Like I was a T book that came
back home with frogs in the PARKT pockets, and for me,
ants just kind of came as a natural transition. I
think that the behavior was super interesting, and it started
(02:35):
off when I started keeping ants kind of in my
little husbandry spree.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Let's say, right, so we mentioned monocologists, So why didn't
you go ahead and explain just what amunocologist is.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, so a marmacologist is basically an ant scientist. So
right now, I'm still a student, but I've worked with
a couple of researchers too for help on Usually it'll
be like new species ranges for different ants, so well,
for example, would be like, oh, we're the first people
(03:12):
to find X type of species of ant in Canada.
I'm also working on on a separate project right now,
and it's about, uh, like the evolution of ants, where
we're using a couple of molecular techniques basically to find
a specific type of like cellular process. And because the
(03:35):
theory is is that like a specific type of cell
dying and ants is actually one of the causes that
they're able to collaborate so well that they've become new
social animals. Mhm. But I would say, but I would
say at the end of the day, generally for me
(03:58):
working with ants on like the academics, it is probably
a little bit. It's probably the least of what is
probably the least of what I do. I do a
lot in terms of so I run a little company
it's called Canada Ant Colony and basically sell like ant
farm kits, little ant colonies. And that's too like films,
that's too ant keepers and that's too like even pet stores.
(04:23):
And I also run a couple of social media accounts
and so that's on like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, on a
channel called down the Antill. And the idea is that
I think that the stories of ants are so like,
are so interesting in a lot of times, they mirror
a lot of what happens and in our world, in
(04:44):
our world up here again, so to speak, and it's
it's their stories that we're looking to tell.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Right right. Yeah, it is funny because I was actually
going to ask you about the ant framer thing, about
who you actually would raise ants for and sell them too.
Because I don't know if I could ever say that
I've actually ever heard of someone being an ant farmer before.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, I think that most people are not most people,
but I think a lot of people have kept ants before,
especially when they're yeah, they're little. They might have grabbed
like a like a jar or sand.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And yeah, yeah, something like that, where those little ant farms,
you know, for like a project or something for school.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah, right, So.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ant keeping is is a hobby that's been evolving over time,
and like that was in the same way that like
probably every engineers has like thrown little paper airplanes as
a kid.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Right now, a lot of ant keeping it looks like.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Colonies of ants that live for like decades, colonies of
answer that queens, and that you get to see all
the behaviors that you'd see outside of the wild happened
like kind of the The idea of the selling point
is basically, it's like a little civilization in your dea.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Right, and it's better to say, go to an ant
farmer like yourself to get you know, these types of ants,
rather than to just go take them out of the wild,
because I'm gonna say that probably wouldn't be good for
the ants number one, because you know they're used to
I guess, a specific routine and stuff like that in
the wild, and you would uproom, so they would probably adapt,
(06:24):
I guess, but I don't know, so it'd probably be better, though,
I would say to get them from you rather than
just go.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Up with them. I think. Is that so typically the
colonies that we work with our colonies that start from
queen's and usually when you're looking outside, what you're gonna
find is just workers. And that means they're basically like
the antholot most of the ants you see outside, they're
not going to be able to reproduce, they're not gonna
be able to start a colony, and really it's it's
(06:50):
kind of the equivalent of like putting a bunch of
people in a room and then they kind of they
kind of slowly die out. Generally, the idea is that
with ant colonies with the queens, it's just because it's
the way they grow and reproduce in the wild. It
means that the colonies will last you a lot longer.
(07:10):
And because for example, the worker aients have to take
care of brood, like the babies, they have to take
care of the queen they have to like make sure
to organize the nest, manage disease. It's it's a lot
more I'm going to say than if then generally if
you're just to like pick up an an outsact. Now
(07:30):
I will add that, like it is possible find queens outside,
and that's also what we do. It's just generally something
that happens on a very seasonal basis. Like if you decide,
just hey, I want to start an ant farm with
an ant queen, it's generally very difficult to just run
outside and do it unless you're very patient, you're willing
(07:52):
to wait maybe like a couple of months, depending on
like those the types of ants you'd like write or
that you want to work with.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Right, So now you just said that. Now you just
had me think of a couple of questions I want
to throw here. Okay, so number one, So number one,
if you have an ant colony, like you say, someone
gets from you, So basically, how are you taking care
of that county? I mean, what are you what will
be I'm assuming you would give them recommendations or tell
(08:21):
them how to take care of the county. What would
they be feeding the ants and stuff like that? How
would they be caring for their colonies.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, the thing that's with ant keeping is that so well,
the nice thing we'll keeping ants is that the ants
do most of the work and then so a lot
of times you're kind of just they're giving them the
resources in the space they need. So generally care looks
like so most ant most ant setups will come in
two parts. There's one where it's called the form of carrium.
(08:49):
It's typically meant of like a plaster or a wood
or like some absorbent material, but the idea is that
it's most to Similarly, the underground. It will have chambers
carved out, so the ant slave it's where like the
babies grow up, and it's where like the queen lives. Right,
there's also the out world, So that's generally the and
(09:11):
that's generally what the what for the ants is outside.
It's where they're collecting food, where they're putting their garbage,
and and really all you have to do is maintain
those two portions. So what that looks like is maybe
for five minutes a week, you add water into the nest,
into the form of caerium to the underground portion, and
(09:32):
then you will the ants they'll eat like a mix
of sugar and like protein. So that might be like
up some maple syrup or some honey and like like
a cricket or a meal woman. Generally, that type of
diet is enough to keep most ants going or to
give them happy rather.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Okay, and so how big of the colony are you
talking about it is? Is that a fairly smaller one?
I mean for just doing a little bit of the
sugar and a cricket or analonion or how big of
a calendy would you be talking about for that?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Generally those are colonies that are in their first year
or so, so that might look like somewhere between twenty
and up to even like one hundred workers. Bigger colonies
are gonna they don't like there. They require more care
in the sense that you're gonna be giving them more water,
more sugar, more food like generally, but like for example,
(10:28):
like the frequency of feeding and the actual maintenance doesn't
really change. Like even for example, this is my favorite
fact about antkeeping, but you're actually able to potty train
your ants. So like ants in the wild, they have
this instinct and the idea is that they they take
their garbage and they put it far far away from
the nest and look like this a little dry spot.
(10:50):
And the idea is that if it's somewhere dry, it's
not gonna mold, it's not gonna ferment, it's not gonna rot,
and it's not gonna bring disease into the colony. So
in captivity, the ants are going to find somewhere in
the outworld the foraging area that feels relatively try and
we're gonna treat that as a garbage pile. And now
the thing is, one of the fun things about ants
(11:12):
is that they all work together.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
They all communicate with each other.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And like they'll go around and spect what other ants
have done and work based off of that. So one
thing you can do if you put like a little
jar out in there, out in the foraging container, put
they are garbage inside it. The ants will think, Okay, well,
I have to put garbage in the garbage pile, and
it just so happens that it's moved.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
To this little jar, and they'll keep putting garbage in
the jar.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Wow, Okay, that's pooful. Yeah, that's great party, And oh
my gosh, we.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Knew what's fun because they kind of most of them
are kind of pre trained, right, they already know how
to do it as long as you show up, right,
as long as you start them off.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Oh my gosh, that's great. Okay, And then say, now
I do knows too that I don't know if it's
a certain ants or a certain comdanies, but what happens
say you know the queen and they have baby ants.
What happens if say you have another queen or two
queens or something like that born in the same county.
Now would you have to kind of split that colony
(12:17):
up because you can't have more than one queen. And
then you know, how would say the average layperson, I mean,
I'm assuming these characteristics to be able to recognize the queen.
I think she's bigger than the other ants and stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah. So, so the way ants reproduces a lot like
the way trees reproduced, And that might not make that
much sense at first, but the idea is that, so
you have the queen and she's basically like the reproductive
organs of a colony, and the workers are kind of
there to support her to pass on like the to
pass on those genes. Right, So generally, what happens is
(12:53):
that once the colony which is a certain size, in
the same way that once a tree reaches a certain age,
the ants will start producing new queens and males, and
those are like the little wing dance. Basically you've probably
seen them from time to time, especially like right after
any rains or like monsoons, and it's it's something similar
(13:15):
on sorry, in the same way that like trees will
produce like bunches of bunches of seeds at a spicode
time of year. So generally what happens is that when
conditioned are just right, all the colonies in an area,
they decide to release all the queens and males all
(13:36):
at once, and like they go out, they they line
on the ground and they find a place to start
a new colony. And so the thing is, even though
new bees are produced, they don't really replace the one
in the original mother colony. And in the same sense
that like like a tree will produce seeds, but if
you chop down the main tree, it doesn't really like this,
(13:58):
you can't really put a seed back in it. We
grow them could thing?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
M h Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, Now I was just wondering how you how you
would wipe that out. So all right, Well, let's just
go ahead. I want to talk about some of the
stuff that I saw in the videos because I thought
it was so cool and I learned so much from them.
So yeah, I think that the people out there really
really like some of these things.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So worry.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Let's story out how had ants evolved since prehistoric times?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, so, ants actually are a type of loss ultimately, right,
sortes or likes whatever. And basically the way that a
lot of these like social insects started out is that
they'd be like it would be a social loss that
(14:53):
happens to it's like take care of So it's a
it's a social loss where like the siblings will take
care of each other, right, And the idea is that progressively,
over time, if the if these loss or you can
care more and more of their siblings, then they become
(15:15):
more and more social and slowly the colonies so to speak,
that have larger numbers they are able to better take
care of themselves, end up being the ones that survive,
and so you get colonies and so like even now
you know there's like species of loss where they'll have
colonies of like three or four and the idea is
that they they slowly and the idea is that what
(15:40):
evolution has done is that they slowly increase the colony
size and also as a result, the ants or loss
that are in the colony are able to specialize. Like
a very big part of from ants specifically was like
having their was basically having their weakness degenerate to the
stead of as we grow out. And then so you
(16:03):
have ants that instead of having wing muscles, they're able
to have stronger leg muscles, they're run faster, They're able
to like have more space for like different organs, for pheromones.
And it's really interesting because ants they evolved I believe,
like a little bit close to like the end of
(16:24):
the Mesozoic, so when dinosaurs are alive, and like the
first ants compared to the ones power are really are
very different. So for example, you'll have a lot of
species that are called vampire ants, and the idea is
that we're One of the theories is that one of
(16:45):
the reasons that they would raise so many larvae or
have a lot of workers was originally kind of as
like a backup food storage, and that so you have
these species of ants where their main food sort they'll
feed their babies, and that their main food source of
the adults is like drinking the blood of like their group.
(17:06):
There's other species like these are pretty famous, but they're
they're extinction now. But for example, like they're called hell ants.
Basically you had these these ants that were like.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Like a little bit over an inch long.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
This is during the time of the during the time
of the dinosaurs where they had jaws at it vertically
and so they have a spike and they kind of
pale pray with it.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Okay, well that's I'm just thinking about the ant and
then paying their prey. That's pretty that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, they have like a it's it's it's an interesting
insects specifically because some animals and this is in a
very common trade in the in the animal kingdom, but
they're able to incorporate metal into different parts of their body.
And then in this case, it was one of the first.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Examples of like a prehistoric insect.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
In particular, what what scientists we're looking at is that
the speed and the force at which they were butting
down normally would be hard enough to basically like break
their heads like as they're biting down and then so
(18:30):
you have ant species where they reinforced their heads with
basically a layer of metal, and that absorbs a lot
of the force and makes it like a lot stronger
of a weapon.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, it was going to ask you about that too,
about ants that create their own Let you going to
ask you to tell us about that, boy, because I
thought that was just crazy. The ants create the lad over.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah. So there's a couple of species of ants, and
these are especially leaf cutter ants, where they seem to
have it. They seem to have developed the ability to
take metal from their diets. So like think about how
we have to eat iron or like zinc or calcium,
and the ants have done this with like magnesium and
(19:14):
zinc and they incorporate it into their armor and in
some species their jaws. So for example, like the most
the best example of this is some leaf cutter ants.
So they're they're basically these these massive grays, like we're
gonna say, like leaf eaters. They they live in the
(19:35):
rainforest in North and South America. They go up into
the trees.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
They cut up leaves, and they bring it back down into.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It into a fertilizer for a fungus like a mushroom
that they're farming to eat. And the thing is because
they're cutting so because they're cutting so much, and because
when you're an ant like leaves are relatively very thick.
One way that they've one way that they can serve energy,
it seems, is by literally sharpening their jaws by lining
(20:10):
the teeth with it like a metal, And that makes
it easier for for like the workers to gather leaves
by cutting them up more easily, more efficiently, but also
made some ants and also made the soldiers be able
to bite down on enemies more effectively. And then so
specifically for a couple of leaf cutter ant species, there's
(20:31):
a little arms race going on where you have some
species that are developing tough metal armor to kind of
protect themselves from from these strong bites. And then on
the other end, as that armor becomes stronger, you're also
seeing stronger and stronger metal jaws.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Wow, that's crazy. I never believe that when I was
reading that about ants and that they have their own
armory that they can that they can make. Yeah, that
was crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And I think the funniest thing is that I'm not
sure if you can pull up a picture on I
guess on the final recording. But when you look at
the pictures of these ants, you can actually see like
the the metal coating on them. It's like a very
thin like silver lining on some parts of their bodies.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Right right, Maybe I can find a picture I can
post on my Facebook page for their podcast. We'll see.
I can cook away and see if I can find
a picture. Yeah. That I couldn't believe that when I
was reading it though, I was just like, oh my god.
They make their own and then so they then we
go into what's going to politics? So ants in democracies.
(21:43):
I thought that was very interesting too. So ants condemn democracies.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, so I think that it's a common misconception that
because ants have a queen that they rain the same
way that a monarch does. This is this is a
fun Raymond as But so Raymond as is ah is
someone who used to work with ants, is actually in
Arizona and used to work with a lot of documentaries.
(22:11):
And his little thing was like, it's it's because like
the the a lot of early mermacologists like ant scientists
or tradition. So he was like, okay, well they kind
of like stick a queen wherever they can go oh,
but really, so the way that most ants make decisions
(22:32):
is for a lot of big decisions, it's left up
to basically the votes of any of the four members
in the colony. And when I say in four members,
I mean something like this. So the way that ants move,
for example, is you'll have a couple of ants. They'll investigate,
like some new areas, a new nesting space. They'll go in,
(22:53):
look around, and if they like it, they'll come back,
and they'll bring a friend. And then if both of
those and if a friend impressed, he comes back, or
rather she comes back brings another friend, and then slowly
kind of it, news travels through the colony. And then
if at some point, like a critical mass is a
(23:14):
colony decide or say, oh, it looks like the like
generally we think that this is a good place to stay,
then generally the ants will start moving on their own.
And the idea is that, and the idea is that
I think ants are are opposite to people in this sense.
(23:36):
But ants individuals are pretty dumb, but collectively they're able
to make really good decisions. Humans are the opposite. I
think most people are pretty smart, but together they're a
little bit dumber.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, I can believe with that.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
But what's but what's really fun about or what and
what kind of is it is coming out? Which which
is actually why we're seeing that ants aren't like monarchies, basically,
is that you'll have some species of ants or even
some populations where if we're where the queens and the
(24:13):
workers are kind of at odds, so a lot of
a lot of queens, for example, have we will produce
chemicals that repress the reproduction of the other worker ants.
And like a phenomenon that we've been observing recently is
that in some species those workers will basically revolt, they'll
(24:35):
kill the queen they work placer with a group of
workers that equal lay a small number of eggs instead
of having the queen lay all the eggs in the colony.
That's also interesting because for there's also ants that have
like more specialized tasks. And this is something I find
really really interesting, But ants their brains will specialize like
(25:00):
very intensely to one task. So you'll have ants where
like the navigation centers of their brain are lay our
massive compared to the other ants and even compared to
the rest of their own brain. And then it seems
that there's a system where let's say that let's say
the ants have to have to get similar that might
(25:22):
be for example, finding a rival mess or finding a
food source. Sometimes for a lot of species, this is
very species dependent. What they'll do is that what the
what the designated scouts, So the ants that have these
in large navigation centers, they'll fall their decision. So it's
(25:42):
it's a little bit of a it's a little bit
of a democracy in the sense that generally it's like
the collective or like a large number of ants having
to agree on something for it to happen. But it's
also not something where every single hand has to vote
on every single thing. They're still a little bit like
(26:03):
us most governments here.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It's quite a bit. I mean,
when you really stop and look at it, Okay, instead
explode themselves, why why do you even instead explore themselves?
And then mean why and how do they do this?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah? So there's a couple of species that do this,
and mostly they're found in like the Southeast Asian jungle
and basically in a lot of defense. Most of these
ants seem to have the ability to or Okay, the
(26:47):
ants that explode most of them that have the ability
to do so to defend themselves from other ants and
generally answer and organism that most animals generally choose not
to mess with, Like thet it's they're not super worth hunting.
The nutritional values are very high. They're gonna they're gonna
fight back, They're gonna fight, they're gonna sting and a
(27:08):
lot of times for ants. That means colonies that are
smaller have a risk of being outnumbered by bigger colonies
or for example, if they are larger ant species that
are around, then like smaller workers can easily get overpowered.
So there's a there's a complex of ants called Colobopsis
(27:29):
sondercy complex or explode ins complex. And what they do
is that they as they age, they produce like a
sticky toxic glue in their abdomens right. And the idea
is that from in most ants, the oldest workers are
also the ones that are outside, so they're foragers, they're soldiers,
(27:50):
their guards. And then so the most toxic workers, let's
say that they're surrounded by a bunch of ants from
another species are from a different colony. What they do
is that they clench really hard, and the muscles in
their their abdomens rip apart and kind of splatter the
group everywhere. The ideas and the idea is that these
(28:13):
are normally workers that are already at the end of
their lives, and so if the colonies in danger, having
them kind of go out in that way potentially takes
a few foes with.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Them, right, the really spiny ants names.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
It's not a very common adaptation, right, But what if
one anecdote that I find it's funny is that in
some of the papers that initially describe the species that
the authors talk about, like they were when they were
trying to collect specimens from the colony, they'd have workers
run up to their thumbs and blow up. So there's
(28:53):
a little bit more difficulty than with a lot of
the other species.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
An that's the idea, my gosh, And like that adds
to the idea where generally things don't mess with ants
unless they're specialized in messing with ants.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, because if I'm not gonna like, if if your
prey blows itself up, maybe it's not so worth it.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I was just thinking, could you imagine somebody who didn't
really know anything about ants and they just happened upon
one of these ants and saw it, and they reached
down to grab it and it comes up and exploded
on them. They could freak out.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
It's like a chemically smell to.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So oh they may really freak out to blow oh
my god.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Right, Like most ants are like chemists to some degree.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So like a lot of the really cool amitations, they'll
have some sort of weird chemical chemical mixture either that
hurts you or a lot of times like communicates with
other ants or other organisms around them.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Right right, No, right, that was just yeah, I can
just see it now, literally exploding ant bombs.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And the that being said, since we have little exploiting ants,
we also have CIA ants. So you know, we got terrorists,
but terrorist exploiting ants you got to have the CIA involved.
So what do I C I A ants do?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
All right, It is a bit of a click baity title.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
But I think it would see it comes.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
From so most ants will have So most ants biggest
enemy is other ants. Generally that's deep. Again, most organisms
don't mess with ants, and so generally the biggest threat
is other ants in the area. And so one thing
that a lot of species will have is that they'll
have scouts that kind of look around look for like,
(31:04):
for example, like other nests that either they can raid
or sometimes they'll interfere with them, like they'll cover their
their nest entrance to the stones, so it's more difficult
to leave them until they clear out the whole until
they clear out the whole spot. And so a lot
(31:26):
of and so a lot of ant species have basically
like a counterintelligence or they'll have kind of patrols around
the nest where their job is to find scouts and
kill them as fast as they can, basically because if
they can't import the information back to the main colony,
there's not as much of a threat of an invasion.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Right right kind of life for those as humans, you know,
you get your kind of intelligence agents. That's kind of
what they do. And trying to help keep our country
safe from other.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Ants is that because they're able to communicate, it also
means that they have like little propaganda messaging too. I
think some of the most interesting answer called social parasites.
But the way it works is that you'll have an
you'll have an ant species that's unable to start a
calling me on its own. So what it does is
(32:24):
that it finds a colony of a related species that
can start on its own. The queen runs in, pretends
to be well.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Depends what it's different species, different different things.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Some of them, for example, will pretend to be a
piece of brute and they get brought into the nest.
Some of them just have really thick legs that are
difficult to bite onto, and they'll charge right in.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
They'll assassinate the queen, and.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Then they'll a lot of them. They'll rub her their
bodies onto the queen's corpse, and the ideas that they
can feel. Some of the said they can pretend to
be the queen, and they'll produce what are called kind
of propaganda chemicals where it kind of forcibly puts the
(33:11):
other ants into a state of panic. And what is
that they're too They're too panic to organize like a
to make a well organized defense. And what happens is
that the I guess the interloper, so the new queen,
the parasite queen. They'll basically try to brainwash the other
(33:35):
workers into believing that they are the real queen all along,
and then so you'll slowly see a colony of one species.
They'll get replaced by a calling of another species as
kind of the workers are kind of as the old
workers slowly die off and the new ones are of
of entirely different species of ant.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
W that's crazy, I'm telling you. Yeah, well, answer that
I never do. And if you VISI, you're naming as
much out there as what I've been learning about ants.
It's crazy some of the things these little beggars do.
So now we come into we have ant slaves, so
(34:17):
we have ant slave revolts. Can you tell us more
about the ant ant revolts?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, don't worry, So.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I'll talk a little bit about the ant keeping too.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
About this so okay, cool, they're.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Called a lot of parasitic species. What they do is
that or they're they're more difficult to keep. And it's
not only because they have to start off the colony
that's not their own, but it's because a a lot
of times the workers will find out or they'll try
to find out, and if they realize that something's off
or something that miss to think. Okay, I think that
(34:51):
the babies that are growing up right now there are
different species. They'll start sabotaging things.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Oh wow, so they'll.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Kill the babies will throw them out sometimes sometimes again
this all depends on the species. They'll even like kill
the kill the queen straight up. And this is especially
well studied in a species of acorn its. There's literally
these ants where an entire colony fits in an acorn
(35:22):
where you'll have a couple, You'll have one big species
called Temnothorax Americans, the American slave making ant, where it
invades other acorn at species to basically they kill the
adults and then they take the babies back home and
the babies grow up to work for the slave making ants.
(35:42):
And we and then what a couple more recent I
say recent, but I guess it's been like fifteen years now.
But what some of these more recent papers are finding
is that it turns out that a lot of times
these rebellions are effective enough where you're having seven percent
of all the all the slave slave maker babies like
(36:04):
wiped out because they're found out by basically rebelling worker ants.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Hum that is, they just can't use some of the
things these ants do. That's just amazing. I mean, the
intelligence I mean that's going in with all of that,
that's just amazing.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I'm not I think I think for some of these behaviors,
it's like there's a risk, not to say that it
isn't the case, but there's like a little bit of
a risk in establishing that there's like an intelligence per se.
But a lot of the a lot of the the
reasons that scientists believe that, for example, slave revolts exist,
(36:45):
right is that even though the workers, even though the
workers in the slave making colony, they can't reproduce, they
can't pass on their jeans if they have any like
related colonies, like colonies of like cousins or or siblings.
Even the idea is that if they weaken the slave
rating colonies enough, they're unable to go out and attack
(37:09):
their attack their relatives. And now the thing is like
the ants probably individually don't have an understanding of oh,
if I do this, then I can help my then
I can help my like my sisters, right because like
most of these they're never raised anywhere else. But it's
(37:30):
more so that the ants that were more picky about
which babies to raise those ones, those populations were able
to push out the slave raiders a lot more easily.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Okay, Okay, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That it not that it doesn't come out similarly to
a lot of the behaviors that we put to humans
because we call them intelligent.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, it's funny because just in the in the thing
that we've talked about here up till now, you see
so many similarities between the ants and the humans behaviors.
I mean, you really do. It's it's making. So you
got you, yetta, so the answer here for so long.
I mean, the humans maybe see some of these things,
answered you making, they're making the ants.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
It's kind of interesting how closely are.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Most of these Most of these things the ants definitely
came up with first, right, probably happened upon the same
thing later. But one I think is really interesting when
answers that, like human society has I feel like has
really only had like a couple of runs so far,
if that makes sense, Like.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Like empires rise and fall, but at the end of
the day.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
There's not that many of them, right answer, I mean, well,
they have a lot of the same dynamics, but these
will be happened, but these things will be happening hundreds
of times, like in our own backyards every single year.
And then so the way seedvolve kind of tends towards
the best strategies for the entire colony are the ones
(39:06):
that get passed out. And I think that in the
same sense that a lot of times, like engineers will
look to nature for example, oh, like propellers that are
inspired by the designs on like seed or on like
the wings on scenes. I think a lot of times
(39:26):
we're looking at what types of behaviors encourage the survival
of entire societies.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I think ants provide a really good model.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
For that, right, Yeah, now that it's a one to
one leg, I'm not proposing that we started using pheromones.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Exactly exactly, ex Okay, So we have ants that will
fight in war with each other and things like that.
So I guess when you have fighting in war, then
you need to have pay headaches. And so there are
paramedic ants. What do the paramedic ants do?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, So, as I mentioned before, there's a lot of
ants that have like rating behaviors, and sometimes this means
rating other ants. Sometimes this means rating in this case termites.
And one behavior that seems to have come up is
that a lot of ant raids will have groups of
ants that kind of flank the entire that flank the
(40:28):
central raid column. And what they're there to do is
that they find any ants that have been injured in
the fighting. They pick them up and they bring them
home and they and they bring them home and treat
them basically. And the idea is that it's the idea
(40:48):
is that it's a lot cheaper, So it's a lot
more effective to like recover a lot of these ants
that could potentially fight another day with good care than
to let them die and kind of like grow a
new one. Right. But what's really interesting I found this
a little bit jarring actually, But for example, one of
(41:10):
the studies they use uses a pseudomonis, so it's a
it's a bacteria that infects both ants and humans, right,
And what's really weird is that so the ants, if
they're untreated, they die over ninety percent of the time,
but when they're treated, I think that drops to like
(41:30):
eight percent, So more than ninety percent of the treatments
are successful. They'll create like an antibiotic in their saliva,
they'll apply it to like infected joints, and then the
ones that are too far gone, they'll amputate at certain areas.
And what was interesting is that for some of these
these specifically like pseudomonis, and obviously this is in a
(41:51):
one to one comparison, but like hospital outbreaks in modern
hospitals will have lower survival rates then when the ants
are dealing with them.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Hmm interesting, Yeah, it is kind of interesting, huh.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Like, obviously there's a lot of factors, like there's going
to be more like immunal compromise folks in the hospitals.
The ants generally aren't dealing with that as much, for example. Yeah,
but I think it does say to how effective a
lot of the strategies that the ants are employing are
that they even could be compared to like parts of
(42:31):
the like a modern medical.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
System, right right.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
So.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Mane of the best two? Why do why do ants
live in colonies like they do? And do all of
the ants live in colonies?
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Okay, so all ants do live in colonies, and generally
that's that's one of.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
The features that define ants.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
As a as a group of animals, as a tax
I'm going to say, but the colony sizes within ants
does vary a lot, So you'll have a lot of
primitive species where their colonies might not might look like two, three, four,
five workers And then you'll have other species that are
(43:23):
specialized or evolved for like swarm rating tactics or like
more modern species where they exist prior where there's been
a lot of push towards larger colonies, where you'll have
colonies that literally have hundreds of millions of workers. Okay,
(43:45):
I think most of most of the ants that you've
seen in your yard, they're probably going to be something
closer to like the two to three thousand to like
let's say let's say five let's say two thousand, two
fifteen thousand workers, like they do get relative to millions,
especially in the more tropical areas or U s or
(44:10):
or or particular species that well, they they make what
are called super colonies. So a lot of unrelated colonies
work together and keem up against other ants or not
a man's other ants, but uh to work together and
share resources. And it's like we'll have effectively billions of
ants working together, right.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Right, Well, it isn't sure if they if if all ants,
you know, lived in colonies, or if you might have
uh certain type of event that kind of lived on
its own or not. So I wanted to kind of
clarify that such ant hills obviously, you know ant a
lot of ants make ant hills, and so all the
most ants make ant hills, and whether they've had a
(44:52):
big money dirt outside or it's just a hold on
the ground that they've kind of you know, excavated. But
how large are some of the largest ant hills and
what countries could some of those be found in.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Well, the one thing I do want to clarify here
is that an hills are surprisingly sophisticated. So a lot
of it it doesn't end on the species, but for example,
the most famous ones, so European wood ants, they'll incorporate
like medicinal residence into the into the into the hills.
(45:23):
Basically when they're coming home from outside, they're walking over
what's basically a disaffect and they're cleaning themselves in the process.
And the thing is a lot of larger antuals. What
they act as is they are they're they're basically like
a bad solar panel. What it does that they'll grabble
(45:48):
the ant will grab a lot of very helpless, morbid
materials that might look like stones, a lot of times
that looks like pine needles, and they'll throw it throw
the day they'll actually face the move the the neo
such and they absorb like the the sun in the
morning and then in the midday they kind of reflect
(46:10):
it back. And the idea is that a lot of
the nests have a lot in terms of regulating the
circulation in the nest and regulating the temperature, and then
so you'll see the like for example, in the capitive setting,
you'll see ants move the babies and the queen throw
of the nest, throw of the day kind of and
seek of the optimal temperature as like the day passes.
(46:33):
But I would say the largest ones are probably like
in Europe, you'll you'll have for macarufas those the woods
I was talking about. With those amounts, they'll get to
like a little bit taller than a person, I think.
Even in the States, especially in the southwest United States,
(46:53):
so that's all the way from from late Inland, Oregon
all the way to like southern Texas and even the
Dakota's there's a spec there's a group of bands on
the harvesturants, and what they do is that they clear
out large chunks of vegetation around their nests and as
(47:15):
a result, you could actually see like if you use
a saddle in assuming in one of those areas, you
can see the landscape dotted with these mountains working the sun.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I looked at some of the pictures of some of
the hills and I saw some of those that were
like quite a bit larger than a person. They were
pretty crazy. Now it came out to do the same thing.
They make good large hills and stuff too sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
And what's interesting is that they'll have like basically ac
systems involved where wind is specifically directed on one where
when like wind hits the h these mountains, it specifically
flushes out of the air through that like different venture
relation tubes at the top, basically like in the same
(48:02):
way that a factory smokestack might do it.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Right, right, So ants in general, what do ants in
general do to help the ecology of an area? In
the flip side that can ants also do damage in
the in the ecology of an area.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
So I think this is a really rough question because
they give me one second, sorry about that. So I
think it's this is a really bit of a difficult
question because like ants are a part part of the
ecology of an ecosystem. So it's weird to say whether
(48:43):
they help or harm it, because like they are the
ecology per se. But what I will say is that
a lot of ants, they are really important in terms
of regulating the insect populations in the area and the
plant populations. So what for example, one thing ants will
do is that they the area of this will just
(49:04):
because they're they're often digging and clearing so much tunnel,
so much soil on bring it to the surface. Another
example is, uh, some species will will decide to kill
certain plants and keep others for for like various for
various usages. Ants will farm other insects too, so that
(49:29):
might look so eight fids are the most common example
where you'll basically have it. It's an insect that sucks
sap out of different plants, and the ants protect them
in return for some of this, some of the leftover
stap that comes at as a very sugary substance. So
but at the same time, so ants do a lot
(49:50):
of I'm gonna say, killing a lot of the other insects.
They do it a lot of decomposition and the area
of the soil, and they could and they plant differences.
And now the way they damage the ecology theoretically is
in the same ways. So for example, like different invasive
species might plant seeds that are also invasive, or they
(50:12):
might kill or they might kill native insects at a
greater rate because they didn't develop the same defenses against
those types of ants. Or let's say, especially for example,
like in farms, if the ants are farming aphids on
(50:33):
for example, like citrus trees, they're basically like it's often
enough to stump the girl of the trees and the crops.
And now whether that's a good thing is I think
a lot more subjective. Generally, most ants that are native
to an area will be important in terms of maintaining
(50:54):
those ecological processes, and most ants that aren't native to
the area generally tend to uh push away from those mkay.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, That's why I was wondering, as I mean, I
I kind of figured, you know, if they were more
of an invasive type of thing, where they you know,
got brought into an area where they're not normally found
or something like that. But uh yeah, so, I mean
that's with anything you know that you do that too
though too. I mean it not just answer to any
animal you bring into an area where they're not naturally found,
they can damage the ecosystem in the ecology, you know,
(51:27):
so these guys gotta be careful for that kind of stuff. So, oh,
what if someone wanted to become an ant keeper?
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Uh, how could they go about doing that? I mean
you kind of talked about it a little bit in
the beginning. And Uh, also, if you wanted to go
ahead and give us your website info so people could
kind of check it out and get some more info,
that would be great, because I know you've got a
bit of info on your on your site.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah. So our our website is uh https uh coin
slash slash Canada dashant dashcolony dot com. We have tons
of guidance. We also do sell ants right now just
in Canada. We're working on a partnership in the States
to help with handkeeping there as well. And yeah, we
(52:16):
get anyone who wants to learn anyone who wants to
learn about ants, feel free to come visit. We have
tons and tons of tons of information on the site.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
And you mentioned at the beginning the YouTube channel. Let's
go ahead and throw that back out there again, because
you guys can go and check zach out on that
YouTube channel. Where if he does this little short YouTube
videos about the ants too. Those are pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yep. So that's down the ant hill and we're on YouTube,
Instagram and TikTok, Facebook, basically everything you can think of.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah, well, Zach, we'll pretty much here at the end
of the podcast of I really appreciate you coming in
and talking about all these really cool things about ants,
because I, like I said, I sure did learn an
awful lot of stuff about them that I had no idea, especially,
I mean, the things that we just discussed here on
the podcast, that's just a little bit of touch. I mean,
(53:12):
you had quite a bit of more stuff out there
on the YouTube channel and stuff like that, but these were, guys.
These were just a few of the things that I
saw that I thought would be interesting to you guys
as well, because they were pretty interesting to me. So
I'm really glad you could come on and kind of
talk about all those different things and about ants and
general give us a lot more information on them. It
(53:32):
was pretty cool hunt to learn more about them.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Thank you so much for having me on. And it
sounds like you're joining the show. I certainly did.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Oh yeah, it was a great It was great talking
to you about this stuff, because, like I said, I
never knew some of the things until I started launching
your little videos and looked at your website and stuff,
and then I was just like, oh my god, this
is so cool. But with that being said, I'm gonna
let you know. I am just gonna go ahead and
announce my next uh couple of podcasts coming up. You're
(54:03):
welcome to stay on until after I announce stairs or
like I know, most most of my guests are kind
of busy, so if you want to hop off, you're
more than welcome to hop off as well.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
So thanks so much, I'm gonna pop up for them.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Really sorry, I have a friend waiting at the door.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Oh no, that's no problem. Like I said, I understand that.
So again, thanks again Zach for being on. I really
appreciate it. And uh, I hope you enjoyed your evening.
That's crazy, alright, I know, all right, everybody, So Zack
jumped out there, Wow, what an interesting uh podcast that was.
(54:38):
I hope you guys enjoyed it. I sure did. I
thought it was really cool to learn all of these things,
uh about ants and some of the things that they
do and stuff, because yeah, that's just interesting. Never knew
anything about the anny explimiting ants, paramedic ants, Oh my gosh,
democracies while how crazy is that stuff? So anyway, now
(55:02):
to the one and announced the next couple podcasts we
got coming up. So my next one is gonna be
on April seventeenth, and that is actually an update podcast again. Uh,
that's gonna be a Scott find is gonna be on
with me and we're kind of updating about Scott's organization
called Joey's Legacy. Excuse me, I don't know if you
(55:23):
guys remember had Scott on a while back and he
started Joey's Legacy because he his dog we went to
the bat dog ended up being pretty much misciagnosed and
ended up passing away. And so, uh, Scott has started
his organization to help other people out there that have
(55:44):
maybe had issues, you know with uh that's you know
that's can do now practice just like human doctors can
stuff like that, or you know, his his his organization
helps people figure out if they do, you know, have
something that they need to go to court with, try
to go after the bet about they they kind of
go over and check out cases that come to them
(56:06):
and then they go from there on deciding whether or
not you might have a case to try to go
after the bet if you thought your dog or cat
or whatever has been misdiagnosed and ended up passing away
because of something that the VET may have done or
not have done. So Scott's gonna be on with us
on April seventeenth, and he's gonna tell us about how
Joey's legacy has been doing and about uh, how the
(56:29):
cases have been going, and how he's been able to
help out other people when they've had issues like this.
And then the one after that is gonna be on
May first. Uh, I am gonna have Robert eccles on
with me. Robert is an author and a Christian author,
and he has written a book called Our uh for
(56:51):
our Friends the Animals, And so I am going to
have Robert on to talk about his book. It is
uh basically kind of looking at uh our friends the animals, uh,
kind of from a more spiritual Christianity type of view.
I guess you would say. So I'm uh uh actually
(57:13):
glad he's gonna be on and we'll be talking about
this with him. So I think it's gonna be a
really good podcast, and UH, I hope you guys will
be able to join us for that as well, because
I think you we'll we'll learn some stuff from mister
uh from uh Robert and UH I'm kind of looking
forward to learning more about his uh outlook on animals
(57:33):
when it comes to having to do with UH Christianity
and spiritual stuff like that, you know, So I think
that'd be a good one. Okay, so guys, don't forget
April seventeenth is gonna be uh Joey's legacy update, and
then UH may first UH for our friends the Animals
with Robert Eccles And with that, that's pretty much all
I got for you guys tonight. I hope he really
(57:55):
did enjoy the podcast tonight. I know I did, and
I hope you guys stay really safe out there uh
this coming weekend. UH don't get into too much trouble.
And UH don't forget uh I it's been going on
there for early a couple of months, but don't forget
UH the podcast episodes getting moved back a little bit
since Spreaker is not doing live anymore. So alright, guys,
(58:20):
have a good weekend and enjoy and don't forget to
come on back in a couple of weeks and listen
to the new podcast, I R I Know,
Believing everybody, and welcome to you calling our creatures. As
many of you already know, I am your host lord,
and tonight we have a very interesting podcast about a
very little creature in the animal animal Kingdom. But me
and that little creature can do all sorts of things,
and it's really cool. Some of the things that you
(00:22):
guys are gonna learn about these guys tonight, I'm talking
about ants and the podcast title is Ants the Kindergary
Hills And let me tell you, these little guys can
do some stuff. But I have uh Zachary move along
with me tonight. He is a normacologist and also a
professional aunt farmer ward show. We have him tell us
(00:43):
maybe a little bit more about his boy cause that's
pretty interesting in itself, and uh, he's gonna give us
all sorts of information about ants and all the really
cool things that are. But a lot of you don't
know about ants because I shorely learned a whole lot. Uh.
Towards the end, I'll help Zach go aheading about So
he's on YouTube channel too, so if you guys want
(01:03):
to really learned a whole lot about ants, you can
go watch his YouTube videos as well. They're pretty cool.
So anyway, with that being said, as Zach, thank you
so much for being on the podcast tonight. I really
appreciate it because I'm looking forward to learning a lot more.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
About ants, no worries.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Thank you so much, and thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, that's awesome. So why didn't you just go ahead
and tell us a little bit about yourself? I mean,
how did you first get interested in insects and ants
and stuff?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah? Great, So, first off, I'm a mormorrocologist at Michael
University here in Montreal, Canada. And really for me, insects
it's always been something that I've worked into my life.
Like my mom, she was born in an early real
part of China, and like the story goes that she
(01:53):
was really afraid of bugs. And then so when I
was born here in Canada, she want to make sure
that it wasn't something that affects me because for her
bugs work in China. So when I was a little kid,
she'd I guess, like after the bedtime story, she'd pull
like an encyclopedia, flipped to the insects section and kind
(02:14):
of get me used to everything. And then so kind
of all my life, I've been I've worked with insights,
I've worked with the nature. Generally, I've most of the
smaller animals, Like I was a T book that came
back home with frogs in the PARKT pockets, and for me,
ants just kind of came as a natural transition. I
think that the behavior was super interesting, and it started
(02:35):
off when I started keeping ants kind of in my
little husbandry spree.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Let's say, right, so we mentioned monocologists, So why didn't
you go ahead and explain just what amunocologist is.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, so a marmacologist is basically an ant scientist. So
right now, I'm still a student, but I've worked with
a couple of researchers too for help on Usually it'll
be like new species ranges for different ants, so well,
for example, would be like, oh, we're the first people
(03:12):
to find X type of species of ant in Canada.
I'm also working on on a separate project right now,
and it's about, uh, like the evolution of ants, where
we're using a couple of molecular techniques basically to find
a specific type of like cellular process. And because the
(03:35):
theory is is that like a specific type of cell
dying and ants is actually one of the causes that
they're able to collaborate so well that they've become new
social animals. Mhm. But I would say, but I would
say at the end of the day, generally for me
(03:58):
working with ants on like the academics, it is probably
a little bit. It's probably the least of what is
probably the least of what I do. I do a
lot in terms of so I run a little company
it's called Canada Ant Colony and basically sell like ant
farm kits, little ant colonies. And that's too like films,
that's too ant keepers and that's too like even pet stores.
(04:23):
And I also run a couple of social media accounts
and so that's on like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, on a
channel called down the Antill. And the idea is that
I think that the stories of ants are so like,
are so interesting in a lot of times, they mirror
a lot of what happens and in our world, in
(04:44):
our world up here again, so to speak, and it's
it's their stories that we're looking to tell.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Right right. Yeah, it is funny because I was actually
going to ask you about the ant framer thing, about
who you actually would raise ants for and sell them too.
Because I don't know if I could ever say that
I've actually ever heard of someone being an ant farmer before.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, I think that most people are not most people,
but I think a lot of people have kept ants before,
especially when they're yeah, they're little. They might have grabbed
like a like a jar or sand.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And yeah, yeah, something like that, where those little ant farms,
you know, for like a project or something for school.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah, right, So.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ant keeping is is a hobby that's been evolving over time,
and like that was in the same way that like
probably every engineers has like thrown little paper airplanes as
a kid.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Right now, a lot of ant keeping it looks like.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Colonies of ants that live for like decades, colonies of
answer that queens, and that you get to see all
the behaviors that you'd see outside of the wild happened
like kind of the The idea of the selling point
is basically, it's like a little civilization in your dea.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Right, and it's better to say, go to an ant
farmer like yourself to get you know, these types of ants,
rather than to just go take them out of the wild,
because I'm gonna say that probably wouldn't be good for
the ants number one, because you know they're used to
I guess, a specific routine and stuff like that in
the wild, and you would uproom, so they would probably adapt,
(06:24):
I guess, but I don't know, so it'd probably be better, though,
I would say to get them from you rather than
just go.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Up with them. I think. Is that so typically the
colonies that we work with our colonies that start from
queen's and usually when you're looking outside, what you're gonna
find is just workers. And that means they're basically like
the antholot most of the ants you see outside, they're
not going to be able to reproduce, they're not gonna
be able to start a colony, and really it's it's
(06:50):
kind of the equivalent of like putting a bunch of
people in a room and then they kind of they
kind of slowly die out. Generally, the idea is that
with ant colonies with the queens, it's just because it's
the way they grow and reproduce in the wild. It
means that the colonies will last you a lot longer.
(07:10):
And because for example, the worker aients have to take
care of brood, like the babies, they have to take
care of the queen they have to like make sure
to organize the nest, manage disease. It's it's a lot
more I'm going to say than if then generally if
you're just to like pick up an an outsact. Now
(07:30):
I will add that, like it is possible find queens outside,
and that's also what we do. It's just generally something
that happens on a very seasonal basis. Like if you decide,
just hey, I want to start an ant farm with
an ant queen, it's generally very difficult to just run
outside and do it unless you're very patient, you're willing
(07:52):
to wait maybe like a couple of months, depending on
like those the types of ants you'd like write or
that you want to work with.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Right, So now you just said that. Now you just
had me think of a couple of questions I want
to throw here. Okay, so number one, So number one,
if you have an ant colony, like you say, someone
gets from you, So basically, how are you taking care
of that county? I mean, what are you what will
be I'm assuming you would give them recommendations or tell
(08:21):
them how to take care of the county. What would
they be feeding the ants and stuff like that? How
would they be caring for their colonies.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, the thing that's with ant keeping is that so well,
the nice thing we'll keeping ants is that the ants
do most of the work and then so a lot
of times you're kind of just they're giving them the
resources in the space they need. So generally care looks
like so most ant most ant setups will come in
two parts. There's one where it's called the form of carrium.
(08:49):
It's typically meant of like a plaster or a wood
or like some absorbent material, but the idea is that
it's most to Similarly, the underground. It will have chambers
carved out, so the ant slave it's where like the
babies grow up, and it's where like the queen lives. Right,
there's also the out world, So that's generally the and
(09:11):
that's generally what the what for the ants is outside.
It's where they're collecting food, where they're putting their garbage,
and and really all you have to do is maintain
those two portions. So what that looks like is maybe
for five minutes a week, you add water into the nest,
into the form of caerium to the underground portion, and
(09:32):
then you will the ants they'll eat like a mix
of sugar and like protein. So that might be like
up some maple syrup or some honey and like like
a cricket or a meal woman. Generally, that type of
diet is enough to keep most ants going or to
give them happy rather.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Okay, and so how big of the colony are you
talking about it is? Is that a fairly smaller one?
I mean for just doing a little bit of the
sugar and a cricket or analonion or how big of
a calendy would you be talking about for that?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Generally those are colonies that are in their first year
or so, so that might look like somewhere between twenty
and up to even like one hundred workers. Bigger colonies
are gonna they don't like there. They require more care
in the sense that you're gonna be giving them more water,
more sugar, more food like generally, but like for example,
(10:28):
like the frequency of feeding and the actual maintenance doesn't
really change. Like even for example, this is my favorite
fact about antkeeping, but you're actually able to potty train
your ants. So like ants in the wild, they have
this instinct and the idea is that they they take
their garbage and they put it far far away from
the nest and look like this a little dry spot.
(10:50):
And the idea is that if it's somewhere dry, it's
not gonna mold, it's not gonna ferment, it's not gonna rot,
and it's not gonna bring disease into the colony. So
in captivity, the ants are going to find somewhere in
the outworld the foraging area that feels relatively try and
we're gonna treat that as a garbage pile. And now
the thing is, one of the fun things about ants
(11:12):
is that they all work together.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
They all communicate with each other.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And like they'll go around and spect what other ants
have done and work based off of that. So one
thing you can do if you put like a little
jar out in there, out in the foraging container, put
they are garbage inside it. The ants will think, Okay, well,
I have to put garbage in the garbage pile, and
it just so happens that it's moved.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
To this little jar, and they'll keep putting garbage in
the jar.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Wow, Okay, that's pooful. Yeah, that's great party, And oh
my gosh, we.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Knew what's fun because they kind of most of them
are kind of pre trained, right, they already know how
to do it as long as you show up, right,
as long as you start them off.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Oh my gosh, that's great. Okay, And then say, now
I do knows too that I don't know if it's
a certain ants or a certain comdanies, but what happens
say you know the queen and they have baby ants.
What happens if say you have another queen or two
queens or something like that born in the same county.
Now would you have to kind of split that colony
(12:17):
up because you can't have more than one queen. And
then you know, how would say the average layperson, I mean,
I'm assuming these characteristics to be able to recognize the queen.
I think she's bigger than the other ants and stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah. So, so the way ants reproduces a lot like
the way trees reproduced, And that might not make that
much sense at first, but the idea is that, so
you have the queen and she's basically like the reproductive
organs of a colony, and the workers are kind of
there to support her to pass on like the to
pass on those genes. Right, So generally, what happens is
(12:53):
that once the colony which is a certain size, in
the same way that once a tree reaches a certain age,
the ants will start producing new queens and males, and
those are like the little wing dance. Basically you've probably
seen them from time to time, especially like right after
any rains or like monsoons, and it's it's something similar
(13:15):
on sorry, in the same way that like trees will
produce like bunches of bunches of seeds at a spicode
time of year. So generally what happens is that when
conditioned are just right, all the colonies in an area,
they decide to release all the queens and males all
(13:36):
at once, and like they go out, they they line
on the ground and they find a place to start
a new colony. And so the thing is, even though
new bees are produced, they don't really replace the one
in the original mother colony. And in the same sense
that like like a tree will produce seeds, but if
you chop down the main tree, it doesn't really like this,
(13:58):
you can't really put a seed back in it. We
grow them could thing?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
M h Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, Now I was just wondering how you how you
would wipe that out. So all right, Well, let's just
go ahead. I want to talk about some of the
stuff that I saw in the videos because I thought
it was so cool and I learned so much from them.
So yeah, I think that the people out there really
really like some of these things.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So worry.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Let's story out how had ants evolved since prehistoric times?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, so, ants actually are a type of loss ultimately, right,
sortes or likes whatever. And basically the way that a
lot of these like social insects started out is that
they'd be like it would be a social loss that
(14:53):
happens to it's like take care of So it's a
it's a social loss where like the siblings will take
care of each other, right, And the idea is that progressively,
over time, if the if these loss or you can
care more and more of their siblings, then they become
(15:15):
more and more social and slowly the colonies so to speak,
that have larger numbers they are able to better take
care of themselves, end up being the ones that survive,
and so you get colonies and so like even now
you know there's like species of loss where they'll have
colonies of like three or four and the idea is
that they they slowly and the idea is that what
(15:40):
evolution has done is that they slowly increase the colony
size and also as a result, the ants or loss
that are in the colony are able to specialize. Like
a very big part of from ants specifically was like
having their was basically having their weakness degenerate to the
stead of as we grow out. And then so you
(16:03):
have ants that instead of having wing muscles, they're able
to have stronger leg muscles, they're run faster, They're able
to like have more space for like different organs, for pheromones.
And it's really interesting because ants they evolved I believe,
like a little bit close to like the end of
(16:24):
the Mesozoic, so when dinosaurs are alive, and like the
first ants compared to the ones power are really are
very different. So for example, you'll have a lot of
species that are called vampire ants, and the idea is
that we're One of the theories is that one of
(16:45):
the reasons that they would raise so many larvae or
have a lot of workers was originally kind of as
like a backup food storage, and that so you have
these species of ants where their main food sort they'll
feed their babies, and that their main food source of
the adults is like drinking the blood of like their group.
(17:06):
There's other species like these are pretty famous, but they're
they're extinction now. But for example, like they're called hell ants.
Basically you had these these ants that were like.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Like a little bit over an inch long.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
This is during the time of the during the time
of the dinosaurs where they had jaws at it vertically
and so they have a spike and they kind of
pale pray with it.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Okay, well that's I'm just thinking about the ant and
then paying their prey. That's pretty that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, they have like a it's it's it's an interesting
insects specifically because some animals and this is in a
very common trade in the in the animal kingdom, but
they're able to incorporate metal into different parts of their body.
And then in this case, it was one of the first.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Examples of like a prehistoric insect.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
In particular, what what scientists we're looking at is that
the speed and the force at which they were butting
down normally would be hard enough to basically like break
their heads like as they're biting down and then so
(18:30):
you have ant species where they reinforced their heads with
basically a layer of metal, and that absorbs a lot
of the force and makes it like a lot stronger
of a weapon.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, it was going to ask you about that too,
about ants that create their own Let you going to
ask you to tell us about that, boy, because I
thought that was just crazy. The ants create the lad over.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah. So there's a couple of species of ants, and
these are especially leaf cutter ants, where they seem to
have it. They seem to have developed the ability to
take metal from their diets. So like think about how
we have to eat iron or like zinc or calcium,
and the ants have done this with like magnesium and
(19:14):
zinc and they incorporate it into their armor and in
some species their jaws. So for example, like the most
the best example of this is some leaf cutter ants.
So they're they're basically these these massive grays, like we're
gonna say, like leaf eaters. They they live in the
(19:35):
rainforest in North and South America. They go up into
the trees.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
They cut up leaves, and they bring it back down into.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It into a fertilizer for a fungus like a mushroom
that they're farming to eat. And the thing is because
they're cutting so because they're cutting so much, and because
when you're an ant like leaves are relatively very thick.
One way that they've one way that they can serve energy,
it seems, is by literally sharpening their jaws by lining
(20:10):
the teeth with it like a metal, And that makes
it easier for for like the workers to gather leaves
by cutting them up more easily, more efficiently, but also
made some ants and also made the soldiers be able
to bite down on enemies more effectively. And then so
specifically for a couple of leaf cutter ant species, there's
(20:31):
a little arms race going on where you have some
species that are developing tough metal armor to kind of
protect themselves from from these strong bites. And then on
the other end, as that armor becomes stronger, you're also
seeing stronger and stronger metal jaws.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Wow, that's crazy. I never believe that when I was
reading that about ants and that they have their own
armory that they can that they can make. Yeah, that
was crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And I think the funniest thing is that I'm not
sure if you can pull up a picture on I
guess on the final recording. But when you look at
the pictures of these ants, you can actually see like
the the metal coating on them. It's like a very
thin like silver lining on some parts of their bodies.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Right right, Maybe I can find a picture I can
post on my Facebook page for their podcast. We'll see.
I can cook away and see if I can find
a picture. Yeah. That I couldn't believe that when I
was reading it though, I was just like, oh my god.
They make their own and then so they then we
go into what's going to politics? So ants in democracies.
(21:43):
I thought that was very interesting too. So ants condemn democracies.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, so I think that it's a common misconception that
because ants have a queen that they rain the same
way that a monarch does. This is this is a
fun Raymond as But so Raymond as is ah is
someone who used to work with ants, is actually in
Arizona and used to work with a lot of documentaries.
(22:11):
And his little thing was like, it's it's because like
the the a lot of early mermacologists like ant scientists
or tradition. So he was like, okay, well they kind
of like stick a queen wherever they can go oh,
but really, so the way that most ants make decisions
(22:32):
is for a lot of big decisions, it's left up
to basically the votes of any of the four members
in the colony. And when I say in four members,
I mean something like this. So the way that ants move,
for example, is you'll have a couple of ants. They'll investigate,
like some new areas, a new nesting space. They'll go in,
(22:53):
look around, and if they like it, they'll come back,
and they'll bring a friend. And then if both of
those and if a friend impressed, he comes back, or
rather she comes back brings another friend, and then slowly
kind of it, news travels through the colony. And then
if at some point, like a critical mass is a
(23:14):
colony decide or say, oh, it looks like the like
generally we think that this is a good place to stay,
then generally the ants will start moving on their own.
And the idea is that, and the idea is that
I think ants are are opposite to people in this sense.
(23:36):
But ants individuals are pretty dumb, but collectively they're able
to make really good decisions. Humans are the opposite. I
think most people are pretty smart, but together they're a
little bit dumber.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, I can believe with that.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
But what's but what's really fun about or what and
what kind of is it is coming out? Which which
is actually why we're seeing that ants aren't like monarchies, basically,
is that you'll have some species of ants or even
some populations where if we're where the queens and the
(24:13):
workers are kind of at odds, so a lot of
a lot of queens, for example, have we will produce
chemicals that repress the reproduction of the other worker ants.
And like a phenomenon that we've been observing recently is
that in some species those workers will basically revolt, they'll
(24:35):
kill the queen they work placer with a group of
workers that equal lay a small number of eggs instead
of having the queen lay all the eggs in the colony.
That's also interesting because for there's also ants that have
like more specialized tasks. And this is something I find
really really interesting, But ants their brains will specialize like
(25:00):
very intensely to one task. So you'll have ants where
like the navigation centers of their brain are lay our
massive compared to the other ants and even compared to
the rest of their own brain. And then it seems
that there's a system where let's say that let's say
the ants have to have to get similar that might
(25:22):
be for example, finding a rival mess or finding a
food source. Sometimes for a lot of species, this is
very species dependent. What they'll do is that what the
what the designated scouts, So the ants that have these
in large navigation centers, they'll fall their decision. So it's
(25:42):
it's a little bit of a it's a little bit
of a democracy in the sense that generally it's like
the collective or like a large number of ants having
to agree on something for it to happen. But it's
also not something where every single hand has to vote
on every single thing. They're still a little bit like
(26:03):
us most governments here.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It's quite a bit. I mean,
when you really stop and look at it, Okay, instead
explode themselves, why why do you even instead explore themselves?
And then mean why and how do they do this?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah? So there's a couple of species that do this,
and mostly they're found in like the Southeast Asian jungle
and basically in a lot of defense. Most of these
ants seem to have the ability to or Okay, the
(26:47):
ants that explode most of them that have the ability
to do so to defend themselves from other ants and
generally answer and organism that most animals generally choose not
to mess with, Like thet it's they're not super worth hunting.
The nutritional values are very high. They're gonna they're gonna
fight back, They're gonna fight, they're gonna sting and a
(27:08):
lot of times for ants. That means colonies that are
smaller have a risk of being outnumbered by bigger colonies
or for example, if they are larger ant species that
are around, then like smaller workers can easily get overpowered.
So there's a there's a complex of ants called Colobopsis
(27:29):
sondercy complex or explode ins complex. And what they do
is that they as they age, they produce like a
sticky toxic glue in their abdomens right. And the idea
is that from in most ants, the oldest workers are
also the ones that are outside, so they're foragers, they're soldiers,
(27:50):
their guards. And then so the most toxic workers, let's
say that they're surrounded by a bunch of ants from
another species are from a different colony. What they do
is that they clench really hard, and the muscles in
their their abdomens rip apart and kind of splatter the
group everywhere. The ideas and the idea is that these
(28:13):
are normally workers that are already at the end of
their lives, and so if the colonies in danger, having
them kind of go out in that way potentially takes
a few foes with.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Them, right, the really spiny ants names.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
It's not a very common adaptation, right, But what if
one anecdote that I find it's funny is that in
some of the papers that initially describe the species that
the authors talk about, like they were when they were
trying to collect specimens from the colony, they'd have workers
run up to their thumbs and blow up. So there's
(28:53):
a little bit more difficulty than with a lot of
the other species.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
An that's the idea, my gosh, And like that adds
to the idea where generally things don't mess with ants
unless they're specialized in messing with ants.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, because if I'm not gonna like, if if your
prey blows itself up, maybe it's not so worth it.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I was just thinking, could you imagine somebody who didn't
really know anything about ants and they just happened upon
one of these ants and saw it, and they reached
down to grab it and it comes up and exploded
on them. They could freak out.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
It's like a chemically smell to.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So oh they may really freak out to blow oh
my god.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Right, Like most ants are like chemists to some degree.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So like a lot of the really cool amitations, they'll
have some sort of weird chemical chemical mixture either that
hurts you or a lot of times like communicates with
other ants or other organisms around them.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Right right, No, right, that was just yeah, I can
just see it now, literally exploding ant bombs.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And the that being said, since we have little exploiting ants,
we also have CIA ants. So you know, we got terrorists,
but terrorist exploiting ants you got to have the CIA involved.
So what do I C I A ants do?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
All right, It is a bit of a click baity title.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
But I think it would see it comes.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
From so most ants will have So most ants biggest
enemy is other ants. Generally that's deep. Again, most organisms
don't mess with ants, and so generally the biggest threat
is other ants in the area. And so one thing
that a lot of species will have is that they'll
have scouts that kind of look around look for like,
(31:04):
for example, like other nests that either they can raid
or sometimes they'll interfere with them, like they'll cover their
their nest entrance to the stones, so it's more difficult
to leave them until they clear out the whole until
they clear out the whole spot. And so a lot
(31:26):
of and so a lot of ant species have basically
like a counterintelligence or they'll have kind of patrols around
the nest where their job is to find scouts and
kill them as fast as they can, basically because if
they can't import the information back to the main colony,
there's not as much of a threat of an invasion.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Right right kind of life for those as humans, you know,
you get your kind of intelligence agents. That's kind of
what they do. And trying to help keep our country
safe from other.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Ants is that because they're able to communicate, it also
means that they have like little propaganda messaging too. I
think some of the most interesting answer called social parasites.
But the way it works is that you'll have an
you'll have an ant species that's unable to start a
calling me on its own. So what it does is
(32:24):
that it finds a colony of a related species that
can start on its own. The queen runs in, pretends
to be well.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Depends what it's different species, different different things.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Some of them, for example, will pretend to be a
piece of brute and they get brought into the nest.
Some of them just have really thick legs that are
difficult to bite onto, and they'll charge right in.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
They'll assassinate the queen, and.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Then they'll a lot of them. They'll rub her their
bodies onto the queen's corpse, and the ideas that they
can feel. Some of the said they can pretend to
be the queen, and they'll produce what are called kind
of propaganda chemicals where it kind of forcibly puts the
(33:11):
other ants into a state of panic. And what is
that they're too They're too panic to organize like a
to make a well organized defense. And what happens is
that the I guess the interloper, so the new queen,
the parasite queen. They'll basically try to brainwash the other
(33:35):
workers into believing that they are the real queen all along,
and then so you'll slowly see a colony of one species.
They'll get replaced by a calling of another species as
kind of the workers are kind of as the old
workers slowly die off and the new ones are of
of entirely different species of ant.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
W that's crazy, I'm telling you. Yeah, well, answer that
I never do. And if you VISI, you're naming as
much out there as what I've been learning about ants.
It's crazy some of the things these little beggars do.
So now we come into we have ant slaves, so
(34:17):
we have ant slave revolts. Can you tell us more
about the ant ant revolts?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, don't worry, So.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I'll talk a little bit about the ant keeping too.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
About this so okay, cool, they're.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Called a lot of parasitic species. What they do is
that or they're they're more difficult to keep. And it's
not only because they have to start off the colony
that's not their own, but it's because a a lot
of times the workers will find out or they'll try
to find out, and if they realize that something's off
or something that miss to think. Okay, I think that
(34:51):
the babies that are growing up right now there are
different species. They'll start sabotaging things.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Oh wow, so they'll.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Kill the babies will throw them out sometimes sometimes again
this all depends on the species. They'll even like kill
the kill the queen straight up. And this is especially
well studied in a species of acorn its. There's literally
these ants where an entire colony fits in an acorn
(35:22):
where you'll have a couple, You'll have one big species
called Temnothorax Americans, the American slave making ant, where it
invades other acorn at species to basically they kill the
adults and then they take the babies back home and
the babies grow up to work for the slave making ants.
(35:42):
And we and then what a couple more recent I
say recent, but I guess it's been like fifteen years now.
But what some of these more recent papers are finding
is that it turns out that a lot of times
these rebellions are effective enough where you're having seven percent
of all the all the slave slave maker babies like
(36:04):
wiped out because they're found out by basically rebelling worker ants.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Hum that is, they just can't use some of the
things these ants do. That's just amazing. I mean, the
intelligence I mean that's going in with all of that,
that's just amazing.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I'm not I think I think for some of these behaviors,
it's like there's a risk, not to say that it
isn't the case, but there's like a little bit of
a risk in establishing that there's like an intelligence per se.
But a lot of the a lot of the the
reasons that scientists believe that, for example, slave revolts exist,
(36:45):
right is that even though the workers, even though the
workers in the slave making colony, they can't reproduce, they
can't pass on their jeans if they have any like
related colonies, like colonies of like cousins or or siblings.
Even the idea is that if they weaken the slave
rating colonies enough, they're unable to go out and attack
(37:09):
their attack their relatives. And now the thing is like
the ants probably individually don't have an understanding of oh,
if I do this, then I can help my then
I can help my like my sisters, right because like
most of these they're never raised anywhere else. But it's
(37:30):
more so that the ants that were more picky about
which babies to raise those ones, those populations were able
to push out the slave raiders a lot more easily.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Okay, Okay, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That it not that it doesn't come out similarly to
a lot of the behaviors that we put to humans
because we call them intelligent.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, it's funny because just in the in the thing
that we've talked about here up till now, you see
so many similarities between the ants and the humans behaviors.
I mean, you really do. It's it's making. So you
got you, yetta, so the answer here for so long.
I mean, the humans maybe see some of these things,
answered you making, they're making the ants.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
It's kind of interesting how closely are.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Most of these Most of these things the ants definitely
came up with first, right, probably happened upon the same
thing later. But one I think is really interesting when
answers that, like human society has I feel like has
really only had like a couple of runs so far,
if that makes sense, Like.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Like empires rise and fall, but at the end of
the day.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
There's not that many of them, right answer, I mean, well,
they have a lot of the same dynamics, but these
will be happened, but these things will be happening hundreds
of times, like in our own backyards every single year.
And then so the way seedvolve kind of tends towards
the best strategies for the entire colony are the ones
(39:06):
that get passed out. And I think that in the
same sense that a lot of times, like engineers will
look to nature for example, oh, like propellers that are
inspired by the designs on like seed or on like
the wings on scenes. I think a lot of times
(39:26):
we're looking at what types of behaviors encourage the survival
of entire societies.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I think ants provide a really good model.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
For that, right, Yeah, now that it's a one to
one leg, I'm not proposing that we started using pheromones.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Exactly exactly, ex Okay, So we have ants that will
fight in war with each other and things like that.
So I guess when you have fighting in war, then
you need to have pay headaches. And so there are
paramedic ants. What do the paramedic ants do?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, So, as I mentioned before, there's a lot of
ants that have like rating behaviors, and sometimes this means
rating other ants. Sometimes this means rating in this case termites.
And one behavior that seems to have come up is
that a lot of ant raids will have groups of
ants that kind of flank the entire that flank the
(40:28):
central raid column. And what they're there to do is
that they find any ants that have been injured in
the fighting. They pick them up and they bring them
home and they and they bring them home and treat
them basically. And the idea is that it's the idea
(40:48):
is that it's a lot cheaper, So it's a lot
more effective to like recover a lot of these ants
that could potentially fight another day with good care than
to let them die and kind of like grow a
new one. Right. But what's really interesting I found this
a little bit jarring actually, But for example, one of
(41:10):
the studies they use uses a pseudomonis, so it's a
it's a bacteria that infects both ants and humans, right,
And what's really weird is that so the ants, if
they're untreated, they die over ninety percent of the time,
but when they're treated, I think that drops to like
(41:30):
eight percent, So more than ninety percent of the treatments
are successful. They'll create like an antibiotic in their saliva,
they'll apply it to like infected joints, and then the
ones that are too far gone, they'll amputate at certain areas.
And what was interesting is that for some of these
these specifically like pseudomonis, and obviously this is in a
(41:51):
one to one comparison, but like hospital outbreaks in modern
hospitals will have lower survival rates then when the ants
are dealing with them.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Hmm interesting, Yeah, it is kind of interesting, huh.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Like, obviously there's a lot of factors, like there's going
to be more like immunal compromise folks in the hospitals.
The ants generally aren't dealing with that as much, for example. Yeah,
but I think it does say to how effective a
lot of the strategies that the ants are employing are
that they even could be compared to like parts of
(42:31):
the like a modern medical.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
System, right right.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
So.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Mane of the best two? Why do why do ants
live in colonies like they do? And do all of
the ants live in colonies?
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Okay, so all ants do live in colonies, and generally
that's that's one of.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
The features that define ants.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
As a as a group of animals, as a tax
I'm going to say, but the colony sizes within ants
does vary a lot, So you'll have a lot of
primitive species where their colonies might not might look like two, three, four,
five workers And then you'll have other species that are
(43:23):
specialized or evolved for like swarm rating tactics or like
more modern species where they exist prior where there's been
a lot of push towards larger colonies, where you'll have
colonies that literally have hundreds of millions of workers. Okay,
(43:45):
I think most of most of the ants that you've
seen in your yard, they're probably going to be something
closer to like the two to three thousand to like
let's say let's say five let's say two thousand, two
fifteen thousand workers, like they do get relative to millions,
especially in the more tropical areas or U s or
(44:10):
or or particular species that well, they they make what
are called super colonies. So a lot of unrelated colonies
work together and keem up against other ants or not
a man's other ants, but uh to work together and
share resources. And it's like we'll have effectively billions of
ants working together, right.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Right, Well, it isn't sure if they if if all ants,
you know, lived in colonies, or if you might have
uh certain type of event that kind of lived on
its own or not. So I wanted to kind of
clarify that such ant hills obviously, you know ant a
lot of ants make ant hills, and so all the
most ants make ant hills, and whether they've had a
(44:52):
big money dirt outside or it's just a hold on
the ground that they've kind of you know, excavated. But
how large are some of the largest ant hills and
what countries could some of those be found in.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Well, the one thing I do want to clarify here
is that an hills are surprisingly sophisticated. So a lot
of it it doesn't end on the species, but for example,
the most famous ones, so European wood ants, they'll incorporate
like medicinal residence into the into the into the hills.
(45:23):
Basically when they're coming home from outside, they're walking over
what's basically a disaffect and they're cleaning themselves in the process.
And the thing is a lot of larger antuals. What
they act as is they are they're they're basically like
a bad solar panel. What it does that they'll grabble
(45:48):
the ant will grab a lot of very helpless, morbid
materials that might look like stones, a lot of times
that looks like pine needles, and they'll throw it throw
the day they'll actually face the move the the neo
such and they absorb like the the sun in the
morning and then in the midday they kind of reflect
(46:10):
it back. And the idea is that a lot of
the nests have a lot in terms of regulating the
circulation in the nest and regulating the temperature, and then
so you'll see the like for example, in the capitive setting,
you'll see ants move the babies and the queen throw
of the nest, throw of the day kind of and
seek of the optimal temperature as like the day passes.
(46:33):
But I would say the largest ones are probably like
in Europe, you'll you'll have for macarufas those the woods
I was talking about. With those amounts, they'll get to
like a little bit taller than a person, I think.
Even in the States, especially in the southwest United States,
(46:53):
so that's all the way from from late Inland, Oregon
all the way to like southern Texas and even the
Dakota's there's a spec there's a group of bands on
the harvesturants, and what they do is that they clear
out large chunks of vegetation around their nests and as
(47:15):
a result, you could actually see like if you use
a saddle in assuming in one of those areas, you
can see the landscape dotted with these mountains working the sun.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I looked at some of the pictures of some of
the hills and I saw some of those that were
like quite a bit larger than a person. They were
pretty crazy. Now it came out to do the same thing.
They make good large hills and stuff too sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
And what's interesting is that they'll have like basically ac
systems involved where wind is specifically directed on one where
when like wind hits the h these mountains, it specifically
flushes out of the air through that like different venture
relation tubes at the top, basically like in the same
(48:02):
way that a factory smokestack might do it.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Right, right, So ants in general, what do ants in
general do to help the ecology of an area? In
the flip side that can ants also do damage in
the in the ecology of an area.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
So I think this is a really rough question because
they give me one second, sorry about that. So I
think it's this is a really bit of a difficult
question because like ants are a part part of the
ecology of an ecosystem. So it's weird to say whether
(48:43):
they help or harm it, because like they are the
ecology per se. But what I will say is that
a lot of ants, they are really important in terms
of regulating the insect populations in the area and the
plant populations. So what for example, one thing ants will
do is that they the area of this will just
(49:04):
because they're they're often digging and clearing so much tunnel,
so much soil on bring it to the surface. Another
example is, uh, some species will will decide to kill
certain plants and keep others for for like various for
various usages. Ants will farm other insects too, so that
(49:29):
might look so eight fids are the most common example
where you'll basically have it. It's an insect that sucks
sap out of different plants, and the ants protect them
in return for some of this, some of the leftover
stap that comes at as a very sugary substance. So
but at the same time, so ants do a lot
(49:50):
of I'm gonna say, killing a lot of the other insects.
They do it a lot of decomposition and the area
of the soil, and they could and they plant differences.
And now the way they damage the ecology theoretically is
in the same ways. So for example, like different invasive
species might plant seeds that are also invasive, or they
(50:12):
might kill or they might kill native insects at a
greater rate because they didn't develop the same defenses against
those types of ants. Or let's say, especially for example,
like in farms, if the ants are farming aphids on
(50:33):
for example, like citrus trees, they're basically like it's often
enough to stump the girl of the trees and the crops.
And now whether that's a good thing is I think
a lot more subjective. Generally, most ants that are native
to an area will be important in terms of maintaining
(50:54):
those ecological processes, and most ants that aren't native to
the area generally tend to uh push away from those mkay.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, That's why I was wondering, as I mean, I
I kind of figured, you know, if they were more
of an invasive type of thing, where they you know,
got brought into an area where they're not normally found
or something like that. But uh yeah, so, I mean
that's with anything you know that you do that too
though too. I mean it not just answer to any
animal you bring into an area where they're not naturally found,
they can damage the ecosystem in the ecology, you know,
(51:27):
so these guys gotta be careful for that kind of stuff. So, oh,
what if someone wanted to become an ant keeper?
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Uh, how could they go about doing that? I mean
you kind of talked about it a little bit in
the beginning. And Uh, also, if you wanted to go
ahead and give us your website info so people could
kind of check it out and get some more info,
that would be great, because I know you've got a
bit of info on your on your site.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah. So our our website is uh https uh coin
slash slash Canada dashant dashcolony dot com. We have tons
of guidance. We also do sell ants right now just
in Canada. We're working on a partnership in the States
to help with handkeeping there as well. And yeah, we
(52:16):
get anyone who wants to learn anyone who wants to
learn about ants, feel free to come visit. We have
tons and tons of tons of information on the site.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
And you mentioned at the beginning the YouTube channel. Let's
go ahead and throw that back out there again, because
you guys can go and check zach out on that
YouTube channel. Where if he does this little short YouTube
videos about the ants too. Those are pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yep. So that's down the ant hill and we're on YouTube,
Instagram and TikTok, Facebook, basically everything you can think of.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah, well, Zach, we'll pretty much here at the end
of the podcast of I really appreciate you coming in
and talking about all these really cool things about ants,
because I, like I said, I sure did learn an
awful lot of stuff about them that I had no idea, especially,
I mean, the things that we just discussed here on
the podcast, that's just a little bit of touch. I mean,
(53:12):
you had quite a bit of more stuff out there
on the YouTube channel and stuff like that, but these were, guys.
These were just a few of the things that I
saw that I thought would be interesting to you guys
as well, because they were pretty interesting to me. So
I'm really glad you could come on and kind of
talk about all those different things and about ants and
general give us a lot more information on them. It
(53:32):
was pretty cool hunt to learn more about them.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Thank you so much for having me on. And it
sounds like you're joining the show. I certainly did.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Oh yeah, it was a great It was great talking
to you about this stuff, because, like I said, I
never knew some of the things until I started launching
your little videos and looked at your website and stuff,
and then I was just like, oh my god, this
is so cool. But with that being said, I'm gonna
let you know. I am just gonna go ahead and
announce my next uh couple of podcasts coming up. You're
(54:03):
welcome to stay on until after I announce stairs or
like I know, most most of my guests are kind
of busy, so if you want to hop off, you're
more than welcome to hop off as well.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
So thanks so much, I'm gonna pop up for them.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Really sorry, I have a friend waiting at the door.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Oh no, that's no problem. Like I said, I understand that.
So again, thanks again Zach for being on. I really
appreciate it. And uh, I hope you enjoyed your evening.
That's crazy, alright, I know, all right, everybody, So Zack
jumped out there, Wow, what an interesting uh podcast that was.
(54:38):
I hope you guys enjoyed it. I sure did. I
thought it was really cool to learn all of these things,
uh about ants and some of the things that they
do and stuff, because yeah, that's just interesting. Never knew
anything about the anny explimiting ants, paramedic ants, Oh my gosh,
democracies while how crazy is that stuff? So anyway, now
(55:02):
to the one and announced the next couple podcasts we
got coming up. So my next one is gonna be
on April seventeenth, and that is actually an update podcast again. Uh,
that's gonna be a Scott find is gonna be on
with me and we're kind of updating about Scott's organization
called Joey's Legacy. Excuse me, I don't know if you
(55:23):
guys remember had Scott on a while back and he
started Joey's Legacy because he his dog we went to
the bat dog ended up being pretty much misciagnosed and
ended up passing away. And so, uh, Scott has started
his organization to help other people out there that have
(55:44):
maybe had issues, you know with uh that's you know
that's can do now practice just like human doctors can
stuff like that, or you know, his his his organization
helps people figure out if they do, you know, have
something that they need to go to court with, try
to go after the bet about they they kind of
go over and check out cases that come to them
(56:06):
and then they go from there on deciding whether or
not you might have a case to try to go
after the bet if you thought your dog or cat
or whatever has been misdiagnosed and ended up passing away
because of something that the VET may have done or
not have done. So Scott's gonna be on with us
on April seventeenth, and he's gonna tell us about how
Joey's legacy has been doing and about uh, how the
(56:29):
cases have been going, and how he's been able to
help out other people when they've had issues like this.
And then the one after that is gonna be on
May first. Uh, I am gonna have Robert eccles on
with me. Robert is an author and a Christian author,
and he has written a book called Our uh for
(56:51):
our Friends the Animals, And so I am going to
have Robert on to talk about his book. It is
uh basically kind of looking at uh our friends the animals, uh,
kind of from a more spiritual Christianity type of view.
I guess you would say. So I'm uh uh actually
(57:13):
glad he's gonna be on and we'll be talking about
this with him. So I think it's gonna be a
really good podcast, and UH, I hope you guys will
be able to join us for that as well, because
I think you we'll we'll learn some stuff from mister
uh from uh Robert and UH I'm kind of looking
forward to learning more about his uh outlook on animals
(57:33):
when it comes to having to do with UH Christianity
and spiritual stuff like that, you know, So I think
that'd be a good one. Okay, so guys, don't forget
April seventeenth is gonna be uh Joey's legacy update, and
then UH may first UH for our friends the Animals
with Robert Eccles And with that, that's pretty much all
I got for you guys tonight. I hope he really
(57:55):
did enjoy the podcast tonight. I know I did, and
I hope you guys stay really safe out there uh
this coming weekend. UH don't get into too much trouble.
And UH don't forget uh I it's been going on
there for early a couple of months, but don't forget
UH the podcast episodes getting moved back a little bit
since Spreaker is not doing live anymore. So alright, guys,
(58:20):
have a good weekend and enjoy and don't forget to
come on back in a couple of weeks and listen
to the new podcast, I R I Know,
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