Greetings AC Family,

Agriculture, Social Media, Day Care, Slavery: This video lists some of the most surprising things ANTS did way before HUMANS ever did them! Some of them might shock you… and this is no April Fools joke!

Hope you enjoy this week’s video!

10 Surprising Things Ants Did Before Humans

In a previous video, we saw one of our ant colonies, The Golden Empire, in the pre-stages of farming aphids in their Hacienda Del Dorado territories. It was an exciting discovery!

But one comment that stood out to me in the comments section of that video was this: “So the Golden Empire has discovered agriculture. Oh my God!” Definitely a valid and understandable comment, but it got me thinking. How primitive do people really see ants in comparison to humans? Do some feel that we humans were the first to invent agriculture, for instance?

So this week on the AntsCanada ant channel, I wanted to show you what we ant keepers have known about the secret and ancient lives of ants and their surprisingly super-advanced ways of life.

AC Family, forget all you thought you knew about human civilization and technology, and let’s delve into the wild and biological world of ants as we explore 10 shocking things ants did before humans. You won’t believe some of the things ants have been doing long before humans ever appeared on the planet, so keep watching until the end.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the AntsCanada ant channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel, and hit the bell icon.

10 SHOCKING THINGS Ants Did Before Humans

Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy!

Before we delve into the 10 shocking things ants did before humans, let’s put things into perspective for a second. A prehistoric perspective, that is, and have a look at where ants and humans fit on the timescale of life.

Consider for a moment this line as the timeline of developed land life on the planet Earth, where this left starting point of the line roughly marks the beginning of the Mesozoic Era some 251.4 million years ago, and this right endpoint marks today, this very moment.

Assuming this, then, the earliest dinosaurs appear around here, at 225 million years ago. Then, at about 170 million years ago, appear the very first salamanders and newts. The first flowering plants appear here, at the 130 million years ago mark. At the 115 million years ago point, we see the first monotreme mammals, the rather primitive egg-laying mammals. By the way, we still have monotremes today, like the platypus and echidna from Australia.

Finally, at 100 million years ago, we have the earliest bees, ants’ close relatives. At least 20 million years later, at the 80 million years ago mark, the very first ants finally appeared on Earth, still very wasp-like at first but ants nonetheless.

Moving along, some of the most famous dinosaurs, like Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, appeared at the 69 million years ago mark. Interesting to note that almost 11 million years after ants showed up on Earth, T-rex and Triceratops finally evolved, and by the time T-rex and Triceratops came to be, ants already had their 11-million-year head start in evolving into its many more diverse species.

So, where then do we humans appear on this prehistoric timescale? Well, if this point marks today, the very first humans appeared about here, just 200,000 years ago, not more than a fifth of a million years ago, and this doesn’t even take into account civilized humans, which is likely much, much less than that! Isn’t that pretty mind-blowing?

This comes to show you that we humans are newbs on this planet, and ants have been around since way before some of our most well-known dinosaurs. So keep this in mind as we bang through these 10 shocking things ants did before humans.

Ants have been doing their thing on this earth some 80 million years before we humans finally evolved into being, so when we say ants have been doing it first, we REALLY mean ants have been doing it first!

So let’s get to that list, shall we?

1. Agriculture & Farming

Some 8-12 million years ago, leaf-cutter ants evolved into being. These ants found ways to gather items in their surroundings, store and mash them up deep in their underground nests, and grow fungi gardens. The ants would then feed exclusively from these fungi gardens. Ant agriculture and farming is something these ants have been doing millions of years before humans, and look how evolved their agriculture has become.

As you may have seen in a previous video, much like human farmers and gardeners have to deal with weeds, leaf-cutter ants also have to deal with weeds that feed on their fungus gardens. To deal with that, the ants have evolved a built-in weeding system where special bacteria on their bodies produce anti-weeding substances that kill these weeds that harm their gardens. Ants have mastered weed control.

But that’s not all. Let’s take a look at ants as farmers of livestock. Yes, ants have cows. As seen here in this photo, these ants are tending to aphids—tiny plant insects that feed from the sap of plants. These aphids produce a sweet by-product called honeydew, which squirts out of the aphids’ bodies when they are stroked, and, well, ants have long been stroking aphids for their honeydew for millions of years, much like dairy farmers acquire cow milk from cows.

There are thousands of species of ants that tend plant insects, and thousands of plant insect species—not just aphids—that are tended to by ants. Check out these Lasius ants, which are farming root insects underground for their sweet secretions. These ants rarely come to the surface to forage and feed off the honeydew of these insects.

In fact, most of these plant pest-tending ants are considered agricultural dangers to humans because they protect these plant insects from other predators, as any dairy farmer would protect his or her cows, and even go so far as to transport the plant insects to healthy plants as soon as their host plant is killed. Red imported fire ants in the US are examples of such ants which protect and propagate aphids, which in turn pose agricultural problems for farmers.

That’s not all! This species of ant tends small insects not for their honeydew but for their meat! So, farming, agriculture, and livestock management—who did it first? Not humans. Ants did.

Moving on to #2.

2. A Communal Garbage Disposal System & Graveyard

Any ant keeper knows that ants establish a garbage site. You see, the ants pile their midden and even dead bodies in a certain area of their setup. Ants need to be as clean as possible and prudent with their garbage management because garbage left sitting around the nest can endanger a colony, spreading harmful fungus and disease, especially considering that ants usually nest underground, where the environment is moist and ideal for bacterial growth. Ants also establish isolated bathroom areas so their colony excrement is disposed of in an area away from the colony’s main activities.

3. Day Care

Ants are masters at managing their young. All young are grouped together by age and cared for according to their stage of life. If you own an ant colony, you will see that the ants generally bunch together the young in groups: eggs, young larvae, mature larvae, and pupae. The ants are always thermoregulating and hydroregulating the young, as well as moving them to various areas and rooms of the nest where it is most ideal for their particular life stage. Some species of ant, for example, move their pupae close to the surface of the nest at certain times of the day where it is warmer, and the heat can help speed up the development process, while they keep eggs and larvae deep in the nest where it is much more humid, so the young will not dry out.

4. Social Media

Ants have been using social media before humans did. Now, let’s not be confused. Of course, ants didn’t invent the internet, but they did establish a very effective way of spreading information quickly within their massive ant cities. You see, ants communicate through pheromones—biological chemicals which communicate very specific messages. There is a specific pheromone for every message they would ever want to communicate, and when an ant lays this pheromone, this message on the ground, it is kind of like a social media post. Another ant will come around, read this “ant social media post,” and decide whether or not it would like to SHARE or Retweet this post.

Usually, if it is a powerful message, like ant “click bait,” then the ant will indeed repost! Posts can communicate messages like “OH NO! An intruder has broken into the nest! Attack!” or “OMG! The most delicious honey is just outside the nest. Follow the pheromone trail we left!” or “Help me dig this awesome tunnel!” Through this pheromonal ant social media system, messages can be reshared and go viral, spreading among millions of members of an ant colony within minutes. Any ant keeper with a large colony can actually see this ant viral post phenomenon in action once food is added to an outworld or if the colony is particularly alarmed for any given reason.

Speaking of pheromones, this leads me to #5 of shocking things ants did before humans:

5. ID Badges & Security

Have you noticed that in the wild, when two ants run into each other, they take a quick moment to touch each other with their antennae? This is their way of determining if they belong to the same colony or not. Most ants are very territorial and will not allow other ants to wander close to their home base. Every colony has a distinct colony scent, which is always changing. To enter a given ant territory, one must have this colony scent or risk being killed. Ant colonies have their own ID badges on the surface of their very exoskeletons.

6. Warfare

Ants are masters of war. It is no surprise that ant colonies are designed for war if need be. Each ant is equipped with powerful mandibles and either a lethal stinger or the ability to spray formic acid, which is like having a can of acid spray available for use at any time! Have you ever seen a huge mass of pavement ants congregating around the sidewalks in the summer? Well, if you look closer, you will discover that it is an ant war! Thousands of ants interlocked, attempting to kill each other with their stingers and mandibles.

There is even a species of ant that—ready for this?—has suicide bombers! A certain species of carpenter ant is capable of latching onto an enemy and then literally self-destructing, exploding and covering anything in its immediate area in a huge, sticky slime ball of lethal acid. Isn’t that just crazy?! If that isn’t intense warfare, I don’t know what is!

7. Slavery

AC Family, get this! There is a whole genus of ant called Polyergus ants who are specially designed to raid the nests of other ant colonies, abduct the pupae in these nests, and use the emerging workers from these abducted pupae to do all the colony’s work for them. This includes hunting and feeding! Polyergus ants cannot even feed themselves and need to constantly have abduction raids of their host nests in order to replenish their slaves who go on to feed the Polyergus ants, care for the Polyergus queen’s young, and construct tunnels in the nest. Polyergus ants are essentially slave-drivers in the ant world.

8. Child Labour

Ants have been doing child labor way before humans came around to try it. Remember my Asian Weaver ant colony from a couple of years back? Well, weaver ants use their young to glue leaves together to create their huge leaf nests in trees. The adult worker ants grab the larvae and use them like glue bottles, using the silk that is secreted by the larvae to bind the leaf edges. Pretty crazy, right? Ant child labor.

And by the way, for those of you who were wondering what happened to this colony, I ended up releasing them back into the wild when they grew to a size I could no longer handle in an indoor setup. I find these ants are not good pets for indoor setups, and are better off outdoors or in really massive enclosures with trees or bushes to nest in. I did feel very lucky to keep them for the 1 year and see what their lives were like.

Now for our final two items in our list of things ants have done before humans. But these are ones that we humans still haven’t yet figured out exactly.

9. Surviving Deep Freeze

Ants from temperate regions are pretty remarkable because, year after year, every winter, ants manage to survive sub-zero temperatures! Temperatures that would for sure kill a human, and that normally would kill any organism. Water crystallization within the body of an animal is lethal, but ants have a way around this! Every winter, the ants produce in their blood, or hemolymph, a rather magical chemical called glycerol, which acts as an antifreeze! In fact, back in the day, humans used to use glycerol as antifreeze for their cars! So, ants are able to keep from freezing in the winter due to glycerol produced prior to winter in their ant blood, and every spring, the ants emerge and continue on their lives year after year.

Isn’t that just mind-blowing, guys? By the way, for those of you who are removing your ants from hibernation, it does take some time for them to get back to normal, so don’t be alarmed if your ants seem non-moving after emerging from deep freeze. They’re likely not dead. Sometimes it takes two weeks for ants to get back to normal.

10. Perfect Social Harmony

If you consider that ants live in these huge societies of thousands and even millions of members, it is remarkable to note that there isn’t a member that rebels or causes internal uproar. There aren’t civil wars, and all members of the colony get along and work together harmoniously. All food and resources are shared. Each member does their part to the best of their ability, and they are ready at any given moment to sacrifice themselves for the good of the entire colony. Some would call this communism. I don’t know, but whatever these ants are doing, it seems to be working for them, seeing as they’ve lasted this long in Earth’s history.

As an ant keeper, the great insights into life and into ourselves that come with watching and keeping ants are completely awe-inspiring.

So tell me, did any of these blow your mind? Let me know in the comments section!

AC Family, thank you so much for watching another episode of the AntsCanada Ant Channel. If you enjoyed this video, please remember to give it a thumbs up, and subscribe to this channel as we release a brand new ant video every Saturday at 8 AM EST. Until next week, AC Family, this is AntsCanada signing out.

It’s ant love forever!

OK, AC Family, did any of these surprise you? For you Inner Colony members, I have something a little different and special for you this week. I have left a hidden video here of a recent visit to a farm here in the Philippines checking out Asian weaver ants and their role in helping produce dragon fruit. You won’t believe how aggressive they are over their beloved trees!

And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.

In our video two weeks ago, we asked: What is an ant’s social stomach used for?

Congratulations to CooldBear who correctly answered: An ant’s social stomach is used for delivering food to other members of the colony so every member of the colony is fed.

Congratulations, CooldBear! You just won some free test tubes from our shop, perfect for rearing your newly caught queen ants.

For this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask: What is the name of the stuff found in ant blood that keeps ants from freezing during the winter? Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could win a free eBook handbook from our shop.

Hope you can subscribe to our channel as we upload a brand new ant video every Saturday at 8 AM EST. We make sure you get your weekly ant fix! Why?

‘Cause it’s ant love forever!