Greetings Ant Lovers,

We made history in the world of science last week and had no idea! A mystery ant I spotted in my yard didn’t happen to match scientific records in the global ant species catalogue. However, when we sent some specimens to the top ant biologist and taxonomist in the country Dr. David General, what he revealed to us was mind-blowing. Meet Ant # 555! Hope you enjoy this week’s episode.

How We Accidentally Discovered ANT # 555 and Made History

In last week’s episode…

But it was pretty awesome to know that our footage of this ant can be used to start the conversation as to what this mystery ant is, if it’s native, and if it’s a brand-new ant discovery that we, the AC Family, made together.

I will send this video to an ant taxonomist friend of mine, who studies, identifies, curates, and names new ant species all the time for AntWeb.org in my country, and ask him for his expert opinion on what he thinks this ant is.

I’ll be sure to update you and let you know what my friend says in a future video!

Until our next eye-opening visit to Antopia, let’s cross our fingers, guys, and hope for Meranoplus acfamilius becoming a real species! Haha!

Thank you for watching and supporting the ants.

It’s ant love forever!

Controversy

Last week’s video, where I proposed that we had made a new ant discovery, was a little controversial within the ant community online.

The video elicited loads of mixed reactions, some really excited about the prospect of being part of a breakthrough scientific ant discovery, and others on the other end calling it fake and outright clickbait.

This mixed reaction is totally expected, particularly the latter reaction, as skepticism is an important and necessary part of science, which is why research publications are peer-reviewed and open to the scientific community to check and verify.

Otherwise, we’d just be believing everything we see and read on the internet, and sharing fake news, which is also not a good thing.

But AC Family, have I got some really cool news to share with you all!

This week, I heard back from my myrmecologist friend and taxonomist for AntWeb.org, the global catalog tracking all the ant species humans have ever discovered in the world, about the mystery ant we filmed in last week’s episode.

And it turns out, he has confirmed that we, AC Family, have indeed officially made a breakthrough scientific ant discovery.

I repeat: we’ve all officially made scientific ant history!

Keep on watching until the end, because I’ll be going over everything my myrmecologist friend said about this gorgeous mystery ant we spotted in my yard.

I asked him some questions about what our next step is now that we’ve made the discovery, why all of this is important to science, and how rare it is to make novel ant discoveries like ours in the world of myrmecology.

But before all that, guys, there was one important thing I had to do first!

I had to head back to Antopia, because I wanted to locate our mystery ant’s nest!

Antopia

Welcome, everyone, to Antopia—this 3,000-square-meter plot of land on which we are currently building our AC Ant House, the custom home I’m building to house the various pet ant colonies and exotic beasts featured on this channel.

As you saw in last week’s episode, the second floor is now complete, and they’re working on the roof deck.

I can’t wait for us to move in later this year and start a new chapter on this channel in our new Antiverse!

So again, guys, don’t forget to subscribe to be part of this new adventure!

But one of the cool new things I’ve realized over the past few months is that the yard of our Ant House is actually an amazing universe of wildlife on its own, full of neat hidden secrets that we gradually uncover more and more with every expedition through its soils—our new ant discovery being such a prime example of this unexplored wilderness!

Antopia’s biological profile of living creatures and plants is so diverse and mind-blowing, I’ve given the yard a name: Antopia.

Antopia’s lush territory is full of thick, flourishing vegetation, animals, various insects, and of course, tons and tons of ants that interact with every life form in the area.

Now, if you’ve been following the Antopia series on this channel, you already know how epic things get on a microscale.

In fact, there’s nothing micro at all about the epic ant drama happening in the grass, and among the various armies of ants devouring monitor lizards, frogs, and termites, we also discovered a Great War of the Ants that is happening right under our noses in the great lands of Antopia.

Now, this Great War of the Ants is important, which you will see in a sec, as it pertains to our mystery ant we discovered last week.

To recap real quickly for those who are new, before we finally delve into details of our ant discovery, the Great Antopian War is between two major teams of ants:

1️⃣ Team Native Ants—the ants who’ve been living in these lands for millions of years, listed here.

2️⃣ Team Invasive Ants—the ants who’ve been introduced to these lands via human activities, listed here, whose sole aim is to conquer Antopia, and kill, displace, and outcompete Team Native Ants.

We here at the channel don’t particularly want these invasive ants around, because invasive ant species are completely volatile and can totally disrupt and ruin an ecosystem.

So, to help support all creatures living in Antopia, it’s been my mission to help support Team Native Ants to win this Great Antopian War of the Ants.

And here, AC Family, is where our new mystery ant comes in.

Mystery Ant

I was feeding a native colony of Marauder Ants, who, by the way, need a name—so please leave your VOTE by hitting LIKE in the pinned comment below for your favorite name for the Marauder Ants, as suggested by you guys in last week’s episode—and I spotted a peculiar ant crawling around nearby.

It was an ant I hadn’t seen before, but I was spellbound by its utter beauty.

I gave it some sweet jelly so I could have a closer look at it.

The mystery ant had these cool long white hairs I’d never seen before on an ant and had only seen on ant-like wingless wasps called velvet wasps.

But this was no velvet wasp.

It had these beautiful spines on its thorax that kind of resembled an ant cape, and two cute beady eyes on its neatly shaped head.

So, I allowed the ant to mosey along on its way after filming it, and I posted its photo in some ant forums online.

It was tentatively identified as the species Meranoplus bicolor.

But when I checked AntWeb.org to see if Meranoplus bicolor was native to my country or if it was invasive—because if it was invasive, that would NOT be good news—to my surprise, Meranoplus bicolor was not listed as a species documented in my country.

And so this meant one of three things:

1️⃣ This ant was, in fact, Meranoplus bicolor, and we were the first to discover that they actually existed in my country and were native.

2️⃣ This ant was, in fact, Meranoplus bicolor, and we were the first to discover that they actually existed in my country but were invasive.

3️⃣ This ant was NOT Meranoplus bicolor, but rather a brand-new, undocumented species of ant that looked close to Meranoplus bicolor.

So, after the video was published, and the uproar of comments elicited a huge discussion online about the identity of this mystery ant, I sent the episode to the one man I knew who could tell us once and for all the truth about our mystery ant in last week’s video.

New Species?

Dr. David General, top ant biologist, taxonomist, and affiliate curator of AntWeb.org and other ant identification websites specializing in studying ants within my country.

I emailed him and wrote:

“Dear Dr. General,

I and all my subscribers are curious to know whether an ant we filmed this week may be a new ant species, a new geographic sighting of Meranoplus bicolor, or something else.

The said ant is filmed in this video.”

I linked the episode, and I couldn’t believe what he wrote back!

“Hello, AntsCanada!

Good to hear from you after such a long time!

I thoroughly enjoyed your video of the ants of Antopia, and seeing my friends Brian Fisher, Corrie Moreau, and Benjamin Blanchard in your video was sweet as well.

The ant in question is indeed Meranoplus bicolor, a new distributional record for the species, and a new species record.

Congratulations on your great find!

Now you can begin to understand the enduring motivation of taxonomic work.

It’s the “high” of discovering something new, be it a new record or a new species.”

Awesome!

So, he felt it wasn’t a new species, but it was a new sighting of this ant in my country.

He then requested I send him some specimens to officially verify that these were indeed Meranoplus bicolor, which made me wonder the following question:

Hi, Dr. General,

Great news about the Meranoplus bicolor being reported in this country for the first time.

Our subscribers of the channel, the AC Family, will be thrilled with this news!

But now I’m also wondering:

What are the chances that, upon examining the ant specimens we are sending you, this ant actually turns out to be an undiscovered ant species and just closely resembles M. bicolor?

In other words, is it at all possible this is an undiscovered ant species, or are you 100% certain it is Meranoplus bicolor based on the video?”

And his response to me was surprising:

“Your ant is very close to Meranoplus bicolor, but it may still be a surprise!

I am reminded of the time (co-myrmecologist) Gary Alpert and I dismissed an ant from Mt. Isarog as simply Tapinoma melanocephalum (a ghost ant), a cosmopolitan pest ant.

Upon closer examination under the microscope, we found it to belong to an entirely different subfamily!

The mimicry fooled two ant taxonomists!

The ant turned out to be an undescribed species of Paraparatrechina or Nylanderia.”

And so, guys—there you have it!

It was still possible that our ant was, in fact, a new species, and Dr. General needed to have a look at specimens to review under a microscope to identify.

So, I went back to Antopia, searched high and low for the mystery ant’s nest, found their nest, placed three workers into test tubes, and sent them to Dr. General’s laboratory for examination.

I am happy to report that at the moment of upload of this video, Dr. David General and his team are examining the specimens right now, as you guys are watching, to verify the exact species of our mystery ant, and to let us know if this is indeed Meranoplus bicolor or a brand-new, undiscovered species.

I will surely let you guys know exactly what their findings are as soon as I hear back from their team of myrmecologists and to also let you know where they will publicly publish this new ant discovery we all found in last week’s episode!

Can you imagine that we all contributed to the growing knowledge of ant science and were a part of ant history?!

High five, AC Family! Great job to us! 🎉🐜