Ant Room Tour | Big-headed Ants

In this documentary on ant keeping, we take a brief look at my massive Big-headed Ant colony (Pheidole sp.). Raised up from a single queen over 3 years ago…now they count into tens of thousands strong!

MY WEBSITE / SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

VIDEO CREDITS
Written, narrated, filmed and edited by Jordan Dean.

MUSIC CREDITS
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

[vincent]

Throw springtails in! They are too small too be eaten by the ants, and they will help great with the mold!

[davidoduntan]

Ants Australia,
As inhumane and brutal this may sound, i have to say my favourite ant species is Temnothorax Pilagens
'Invisible Ants'.

Temnothorax pilagens, or pillage ants, are very small slave-maker ants with a unique set of skills. Slave-maker ants don’t have their own workers, so they steal other ants’ larvae and use them as slave labor. This means that in its colony alone, they can be a variety of different species of ants, with different shape and sizes all working (or slaving) as one.

Pillage ants are very small, and they raid colonies of ants that are themselves so small that they live in a single acorn. These little acorn fortresses only have one entrance. So how do pillage ants gain access? They walk in through the front door. Usually, they aren’t even noticed. Scientists think they have some sort of chemical camouflage that allows them to remain mostly undetectable to their enemies. In other words, they possess chemical invisibility, which is truly amazing.

But sometimes they are found out, in which case fighting ensues. In such scenarios, the small pillage ant will stab its opponent in the neck with paralyzing venom that kills it quickly or enables it to subdue the ant.

Some Interesting facts about Temnothorax Pilagens are:
.Pillage ant casualties have never been observed from fights, whereas the other ants can suffer anywhere from 5–100 percent losses. This may be because of the Temnothorax Pilagens 'chemical invisibility' and so as it quickly finishes off an ant that has notice its presence, before the ant can alert other members, it activates its 'chemical invisibility'.
.Pillage ants has never been observed to attack in groups larger than four individuals. This is just simply amazing. Considering its small size, you would think it needs an whole army to take on colonies, but just 4 little part assassins and part ninjas.

[EnderAnts]

ANOTHER VIDEO WITHIN TWO WEEKS! THIS IS CRAZY :D

[cliff]

My son is an ant fanatic, so I was pretty stoked when I found a big-headed ant queen about 6+ months back. Since then the colony has grown to about 100 ants. I’ve been wondering how to feed and take care of them, and this video really helped. Thank you!

[ant.invasion]

Yes!!! Great video Jordan, looking forward to see how big this colony can get! 🐜

[djenaba]

This is my favourite ant video thus far! Makes me want to raise Pheidole. I like how dense and full of footage, rather than just the same thing over and over again. Great job mate!

[ebonhawken]

i feel like i enjoy your videos more over ants canada just because you feel more down to earth about your love for ants. I feel like Ants Canada started out like you but has let the youtube fame get in the way of everything. Everytime i see his videos its always some crazy thing he is doing with his ants or some clickbait title. Dont get me wrong, hes a great youtuber but i like how calm and collective you are. I love watching your videos and i feel like im learning so much about this new hobby. My first queen ant just hatched her first workers and its so exciting. Thanks again for your hard work

[danic]

Hey Jordan! Great job on the Videos once again. My favorite ant species are Tetramorium sp E. I remember as a kid, seeing these very basic, small, black, stinging ants that would have giant wars on the sidewalk during spring time. I always used to watch them fight and found it so fascinating how they knew who's ants belonged to what colony. Although their clump looked like a giant mess, for the ants, it was very clear what they were doing. When I started ant keeping about 3 years ago, I caught my first queen, a Cacophonous Novaebrencencis. She was a beautiful queen who started a very nice colony. The day their first major enclosed, I made a big mistake. I put fluon around the edge of their outworld and decided not to put a lid on to help aerate the set up. I went out for lunch and came back to a nothing. No ants, no brood, no queen. My initial thought was that the ants had escaped. This made me so sad and want to quit ant keeping. However, that night, before going to bed, I was taking down their set up to wash it, and found about 20-50 Tetramorium workers in their outworld. This made me hate those ants, and I never wanted to keep them. Little did I know, I caught a Tetramorium queen the next summer. I did not know it was tetramorium tho. She laid eggs and had her first tiny workers. I thought at first they were Tapinoma but I was wrong. After they hit their 100 worker mark, I realized they were Tetramorium. I wanted to get rid of them, but I decided to give them a chance. We had our ups and downs, such as escapes and disagreements within they own colony, but I don't regret keeping them for a second. I realized that there is no point holding a grudge against a Genus of ants because 1 bad thing happens. Right now they have 5-8k workers and produce alates every year. They are currently house in THA Phalanx, 3 AntsAUS ytong size 1, 4 AntsAus ytong size 5. I'd love to test out this acrylic type nest on them. I've never used one. Let's just hope I win!

Keep up the good work!

Dan

Ps: Go check out my instagram @AntsToronto

[bigshrekhorner]

8:35 You missed the opportunity of saying "They go nuts for nuts"!

[ohhidayo]

Man your videos and production have improved monumentally since you started with that first big headed ant video, seriously awesome work! I also love that you don't use clickbait or flashy titles, just honest quality content :)
I'd say my favourite genus is Oecophylla, their vibrant green colour and intriguing way they build their nests, what a spectacle! However I also really love Pheidole because I have heaps of fond memories as a child just watching them forage and traverse, I remember being fascinated by the fact that there was a big headed ant amongst an army of smaller ants and coming to the conclusion that it was a "soldier". Nowadays I'm searching for a Pheidole queen to start my own nest and a new hobby, even though I'm 25 now I'll probably still get lost watching them for hours!

[i_May_u]

My favourite Ant species are definitely the invasive “crazy ants”, also called “raspberry ants”. These invaded the Houston area about 10 years ago. They look sort of like fire ants, but they usually don’t sting, whereas fire ants will sting en masse. Another thing I like about them is that they displaced a lot of fire ants. Fire ants seem to have recovered somewhat the last few years, but they don’t seem to be as numerous as they were before the crazy ants showed up.

One thing bad about the crazy ants is that they like to build their nests inside electrical equipment. That happened to me when they built a large nest inside the outside unit of my home air conditioner. Fortunately, I discovered it before it got big enough to cause a problem.
But over all these are my all time faroutite Ants. They are just majestic and badass!
-Greetings

[mal]

Saw some of these little guys near my dads office as a kid. Poked them with a pencil and got to see all the majors come out

[v_tripps]

I lived in the Philippines from most of my childhood meaning I was immersed in a huge variety of ants but from out of all of them my favourite is the odontomachus sp, the trap jaw ant.These guys really fascinated me with their amazing looking jaws that can shut in less than a second and there unique body structure.I dreamed of having a colony of these critters and hopefully that happens.

[blikker]

Another comfy video! Thank you, this compliments my very rainy day here in the States.

[steliosgiatrakos]

My FAVOURITE ant species is the weaver ant. I love how they have learned to adapt to the world around them by harvesting silk from their larve and use it to weave leafs together and build their nests. I also love the way they work together when attacking possible predators or prey by each gripping to a leg and pulling. They are an extremely intelligent and resourceful species that I absolutely love. I have tried to find them at a waterfall range but instead encountered a colony of my second favourite species (Myrmecia). I believe their beautiful colouring of green and orangey brown help them camouflage from predators and is one of the MANY reasons they are so diverse from any other ant species. I have searched hard but never found a nest of weaver ants so I don't have a photo. I absolutely love the way they build their nests in trees. One of my favourite features about weaver ants is the brilliant colouring of the elates and I would FREAK OUT if I ever found a fertile queen. These ants send a great message of teamwork and resourcefulness across the world.

P.S I love your ant documentaries and I believe you should make a documentary on weaver ants.

[nordicants]

Im happy to be like 300, very good video!! This vivarium is beautiful.

[billycreations]

Wood ants (Formica rufa) are my favorite ants. There are several reasons why. One reason is their remarkable ability to spray formic acid. These ants along with many other ants use these for catching prey, and fighting enemies. These ants are also known for their ability to farm their own cattle and plants. They form a symbiotic relationship with the aphids or caterpillars which makes them very interesting. Another thing that makes these ants a favorite of mine is the fact that they can take slaves from other colonies. It's interesting that the ants are smart enough to not kill other ants from other colonies. Instead they have the ants work for them. This is one of many examples of how advanced ants are compared to other insects. One last reason is that compared to other ants, their building abilities are much better. They have a much more sophisticated and organized nest that gives them many benefits. I believe that you did a documentary of these ants. You did a great job with that. One thing you forgot to mention is that the colonies can have more than one queen ant. Anyway, that's my entry.

[zookeeper]

This is so AWEOMSE I've been waiting so long for this

[Gaming_With_Jordy]

Springtails are amazing for clean up .

[archaeodesigns]

Incredible work Jordan, insightful of every stage of ant metamorphosis and each one's behaviour. Inspires me to build a colony of my own!