Greetings AC Family,

This week two of the most notorious multi-legged critters come face to face as a result of me trying to contain escaping fire ants! You won’t believe the outcome!

Fire Ants vs. Giant Spiders

I noticed the next morning, the fire ants had been busy cutting out their own path of resistance.

The Fluon barriers I had placed to ensure the ants remained secure inside the Selva de Fuego had weak spots.

Overnight, the ants had figured out that the corners were easier to cling to despite the Fluon barrier.

Oh no!

So far, it looked like they hadn’t yet figured a way to cross the upside-down lip. But that’s not all!

What I spotted next caused me great concern.

The rains overnight had naturally cued some guests to emerge from the nests, and there, seen on one of the frogbit islands, were full-grown male and female alates.

We didn’t have the time I thought we had to prepare.

The fire ants were now starting to have mating flights!

What was I going to do to keep all these fire ants inside?

It was then that a tiny movement in the corner caught my eye.

A tiny spider was lassoing some of the ants that managed to get too close.

At first, I asked myself, how on Earth did a spider get in here? It must have come in with the plants.

But what was more important was that, at that very moment, a crazy idea came to me, which would offer a great solution to both my fire ant escape problems.

Oh boy, this was about to get interesting.

Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the bell icon. Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!

So, AC Family, I know a lot of you out there are arachnophobic, as it is a very common phobia, but if you’ve read the comments on some of the other videos of this channel, so many AC Family members have expressed that these ant nature videos helped them overcome their fear of ants. So, if they can do it, so can you, arachnophobes.

If you are one of these arachnophobic people, while watching this video, do take deep breaths in and out, feel free to press pause whenever you need to, and grab someone’s arm to watch with you, especially at the ending. Because if you can get over the rather intense scene at the end of this video, you can say that you have officially conquered your spider fears.

Now, about the escaping ants: I know many of you have mentioned, why not just add a mesh cover to the Selva de Fuego to keep the ants in?

Valid question, but the answer is, I can’t add a cover because these ants are small enough to fit through the space between the glass edge and any cover I put on. If I were to add some kind of sandwiched insulation layer to block that space where the cover meets the glass, the ants would be able to chew through it and eventually get out.

Plus, even with a tight-fitting cover, what about when I have to feed the ants, or do water changes and maintain the river? As soon as I would open that bad boy, the ants would be ready to break loose. Basically, a cover was not an option, and a barrier was the answer, even if it had to be a biological barrier.

So, AC Family, over the years, a lot of you have been asking and waiting for an episode like this, but never had I imagined I would be in a situation that necessitated the meeting of two of my favorite invertebrates on the planet in a single enclosure. But today, we were going to attempt the unimaginable.

Spiders and ants couldn’t be any more different. Ants are insects, with six legs, they’re social in nature, living in huge groups, and they live in soil. Spiders are arachnids, with eight legs, most species of which live in solitude, in webs that they spin. For ants like these fire ants, a colony you guys named the Fire Nation, their venom is injected from their stingers. Spiders inject their venom from fangs.

Both fire ants and spiders, however, are notoriously hated and feared by the world and revered and loved by critter-lovers like us. Today, I needed a safe and ethical way, a natural way, to keep my fire ants, that have surprisingly managed to pass my barrier of Fluon in their newly created rainforest setup called the Selva de Fuego, from escaping into my home.

But it wasn’t only the crawling ants that I had to worry about; it was also the flying ones. The Fire Nation’s army of reproductives, called alates—young queens and males produced by the main queen every mating season—were growing in numbers now, ready to start their annual mating flights to seed the next generation of fire ants.

I was surprised to discover last week that the Selva de Fuego’s lush, humid, and rainy climate was the cue these reproductives were waiting for to start these massive aerial breeding sessions. But I wasn’t going to let these fire ant nuptial flights or escapes happen. I was determined to use some special eight-armed forces.

My plan today was to release a team of hungry spiders into the Selva de Fuego to hopefully serve as natural assassins of escaping ants as well as air control for these flying reproductive ants! The plan was totally crazy, but at this point, I was willing to try anything. It was too late now to move the Fire Nation back into their old setup. We needed our team of spiders now.

So, I waited for the dark of night to befall the Selva de Fuego. Our aquatic creatures were retiring for their slumber. Our wedded pair of ram cichlids, whom you guys have officially named Romeo and Juliet, were snuggling with each other lovingly under the moonlight. Our cleaning team of Corydoras catfish were fast asleep. The Fire Nation’s night shift workers were busy going about their various tasks around the kingdom.

But what the Selva de Fuegans didn’t know was that above them awaited secret teams of skilled beasts preparing for what we will call Operation: FEAR… Flying & Escaping Ant Regulation.

Behold! Our eight-armed forces for the job.

AC Family, here I have prepared two teams.

Meet Team A, a group of four Neoscona punctigera, orb-weaver spiders.

This was a stout team of female assassins who create impressive orb webs in jungles, which are super effective at capturing prey. They were a perfect size because they were not too big, which meant they might be able to safely touch Selva de Fuego soils without being noticed in case they needed to secure webbing from ground attachments.

They wore camo and could blend in perfectly with any branch, leaf, or rock.

Next, AC Family, I’d like you to meet Team B, the brawn and muscle of our Operation.

In the event of Team A failure—meaning death at the mandibles and stings of the aggressive Fire Nation, abandonment, or even death by each other—the plan was to then send in these spiders of Team B.

They were also orb-weavers, belonging to the widespread genus Argiope.

Unlike the spiders of Team A, these ladies were giants!

And unlike Team A, there was nothing discreet about them.

Shiny silver and yellow patterns adorned their backs, designed to reflect sunlight to attract insects into their grand orb webs.

They were scary-looking, except maybe this one. It seems this spider came to me in the middle of shedding and had hardened in a very distorted manner. The poor thing.

I’m not too sure what I will do with her.

All eight of these spiders, by the way, were recruits sent to me by local children here in the Philippines, where I currently live.

You see, a long-time popular activity for Filipino kids for decades has been spider fighting—something my dad told me about as a kid—where kids would go out and catch these spiders from the forests and keep them in matchboxes until they were ready to be put up against each other on sticks to fight to the death, sometimes betting money.

These spiders, hopefully, won’t be killing each other, though. I hope they will be preoccupied with picking off the ants.

There were, however, so many uncontrollable variables I could foresee with Operation: FEAR.

First, there was no way to control where the spiders would build their webs. As a kid growing up in Canada, I used to release an orb-weaver spider at my windowsill indoors, and they would obediently build a web right there on my window by morning, where I continued to feed them until they died by Fall.

My hope was that if I released four of these orb-weaver spiders into the Selva de Fuego at all four corners of the territories, they would each build their web on location and take care of ants escaping at these corners. This was the best-case scenario!

Second, there was no way to tell if their webs would be effective at catching all flying reproductive ants or even escaping ants.

Third, nothing stopped the spiders from simply crawling out of the Selva de Fuego and wandering off somewhere in my ant room or even out a window.

Fourth, I had no idea if these spiders would be able to survive the wrath and blood-thirst of the Fire Nation.

In fact, nothing has ever been able to survive the Fire Nation.

In other words, AC Family, this entire thing was 100% experimental and unpredictable.

But, again, I was willing to try it!

Here we go.

It’s time to release our four members of Team A at their individual posts within the Selva de Fuego, but first, we needed to give the spiders a leading advantage at the space.

We couldn’t have the spiders attempt web building while fire ants were all around, so I reinforced the corners with a baby powder mixed with an alcohol barrier, to keep the ants temporarily off so the spiders could web build undistracted and in peace.

Next, I prepared wire clips from which each spider’s container would hang.

Here we go, AC Family: 1, 2, 3! Releasing our first spider, and then our second, third, and fourth.

AC Family, let’s watch!

The spiders immediately emerged from their containers and began to wander the premises.

This spider felt the need to release its built-up feces before embarking on its journey to who knows where.

I watched as it came close to a nearby spider but took another route above it, accessing our rain system.

Another spider stationed herself in a discreet spot along the edge of the tank, where fire ants came dangerously close but didn’t seem to notice.

This spider decided to hang out and clean itself.

Look at that webbing! Can we marvel at this creature for a second?

Take a look at her.

I find it just incredible that evolution has created such an animal, living exclusively on webbing produced by spinnerets on the tip of its abdomen.

Spider webs start off as a liquid and solidify into a sticky substance when in contact with air.

What’s amazing is that this spider can control the types of silk webbing produced, depending on what the webbing is for.

In this case, it’s a lifeline to hang from. Webbing used for wrapping prey is different from the webbing used to build webs, which is different still from lifeline webbing, like this spider’s here… whoops!

AC Family, get this! Spiders can create up to seven different types of silk for different uses, including webbing for pheromonal trails, reproduction (where some spiders create sperm webs), prey immobilization (where some spiders squirt and mix their venom with their silk), guideline webbing to help spiders find their way back to a previous location, and this awesome thing called ballooning, where spiders will use their silk to catch winds to actually fly them to other locations!

Yes, many spiders can fly. Isn’t it mind-blowing to think about how evolution has produced such a creature?

Many ants also produce silk—not these fire ants of the Fire Nation, but ants that create cocoons, like our Golden Empire, or that build silk-glued leaf nests, like the Black Dragons. But ant silk is nowhere near as versatile as that of spiders.

Humans are studying the chemical makeup of spider silk to better understand how we can improve human items, like bulletproof vests.

Anyway, this spider eventually went on to join the stationed spider on the risky edge to sleep soundly for the rest of the night. It seemed like these spiders were not too aggressive toward each other.

The other two spiders kind of just chilled and cleaned themselves all night and seemed unfazed when the rains came rolling in.

I actually tried to stay up all night to watch the spiders in hopes of filming them building their orb webs, but I ended up falling asleep on the floor.

When I woke up, I instantly jumped to check the Selva de Fuego to see if the spiders had built webs.

To my dismay, there were no webs.

I saw spider one, two, three, and spider four was nowhere to be found… oh, never mind. There she is. She didn’t survive the night. Oh boy!

This all was going to be tougher than I thought. Later that day, another spider went missing. She must have fallen prey to the Fire Nation as well.

That afternoon, I decided it was time to send in Team B. I summoned Team B’s most promising members and placed them into the Selva de Fuego. These spiders were absolute giants!

I loved watching them for hours as they moved around the top of the Selva de Fuego. The one thing I did notice, though, was that they spent a lot of time—and I mean a lot of time—cleaning themselves. I had no idea spiders were such germaphobes!

By night, I saw something really interesting. Check this out.

It seemed one of the Team B spiders had set up the framework for an orb web, but it seemed to be bouncing back and forth.

When I looked down to where it had attached its support line, there was a member of the Fire Nation trying to climb up the web to get to the spider!

You see how fearless the Fire Nation is? Man!

Anyway, the spider seemed to be trying to shake the fire ant off so it could continue with web building. I was looking forward to finally seeing some webs by morning.

Morning came, and checking the Selva de Fuego, I saw no webs again.

In fact, I saw no spiders at all. The only place I did see webbing was outside my window!

One of them had managed to find its way out of my ant room. This unlucky streak continued when I tried to release our third member of Team B, which I found later under a huge pile of Fire Nation workers. And, well, this deformed Team B member couldn’t even move properly, so I let it go.

AC Family, this was the failure of Operation: FEAR.

I felt terrible about all the arachnid lives we had lost while trying, and what was worse—the Fire Nation had now found a way to cross the upside-down lip.

The fire ants were now successful at officially finding their way out of the Selva de Fuego, and I had no way of stopping them now!

I had placed a pane of glass I had lying around as a last resort to keep them in, but I knew it would be no use. Soon, these free ants would be going back to the colony to tell them all about this new way out.

I panicked and felt defeated. I couldn’t imagine the Fire Nation breaking loose in my room!

And then the unthinkable came to mind. Was I going to have to resort to exterminating the Fire Nation myself with spray? No!

Suddenly, clarity.

It was then that I knew what to do—or rather, whom to visit.

AC Family, who you’re about to meet now is someone absolutely legendary, someone none of you have ever met before, but whom I’ve known since the beginning of time—well, ant time anyway.

In watching these ant videos, you’ve all come to know the queens of this ant room, of our Antiverse. But what you guys don’t know is that before the Antiverse ever came to be, there existed the one—a goddess who ruled this plane of existence.

Actually, I’m surprised none of you ever asked about what lay next to the Fire Nation, what lay beneath the Fire Palace.

AC Family, it was time to visit the goddess of the Antiverse, who is surprisingly not even an ant. No, the goddess of the ant room is a spider.

I approached the goddess’s lair with reverence and caution.

Opening the glass, and AC Family, brace yourselves, as I present to you, in her splendid divinity, Imelda, the bird-eater tarantula, goddess of the Antiverse.

She has an 8-inch leg span and is a true behemoth.

Just do as I say, AC Family, and we will be safe. No sudden movements.

Every time I enter this sacred lair of Imelda, I make sure to always show great respect and reverence in her presence, lest I lose my fingers.

Her water bowl, which I always make sure is topped off and full, needed some cleaning. She telepathically commanded me now to make it clean.

As you wish, my goddess.

I took a deep breath and, with my hand, slowly made my way to her water bowl.

Got it. Removing the bowl to wash it free of its stains.

The next requirement of me was a peace offering of some sort. I was not allowed to enter her lair without bearing a gift fit for a goddess.

She waited patiently.

I came with the fattest, most delectable cockroach from my cockroach farm to offer as my appeasing sacrifice to goddess Imelda. I had hoped this gift would suffice.

She always loved to eat the male roaches. I approached slowly and deliberately to give her the cockroach.

Oh man!

Alright, it seems she’s not hungry at the moment. I had fed her a few days ago, so I guess she was still content food-wise.

She’ll be eating our gift later, but the good news is we had her blessing to remain here for a short time.

So now, the reason I came here. I needed Imelda’s silk.

Tarantulas like Imelda here cover their entire living space with a thick carpet of silk. On some nights, I will catch Imelda meticulously going over this entire terrarium with a fresh layer of silk.

She blankets the decor, the ground, and even the glass with this divine mattress. In fact, she refuses to dig tunnels like most tarantulas and demands that she be kept in a big space like this to treat the entire space as her cathedral of silk.

I’ve kept her in different setups before in the past over the years, but she has shown me that she is most comfortable living in this huge palace of webbing.

The reason tarantulas lay down these carpets of webbing, especially during feeding time, is because, in their natural habitat, ants are a common nuisance, including fire ants. Imelda is also a South American species, and the smell of feeding time easily attracts a barrage of various ants to her den. This silk makes it hard for ants to invade and enter her territory, and I was in need of this godly material.

I proceeded to harvest this webbing, and using some glue, I attached it to the corners of the Selva de Fuego.

And want to hear something absolutely crazy? It worked.

To my utter surprise, the fire ant escapes stopped. The webbing made it hard for the fire ants to cross! I couldn’t believe it worked!

I resolved to continually harvest sections of Imelda’s silk and attach it to the corners of the Fire Nation’s kingdom to ensure there were no escaped ants.

Now, as for the flying reproductives, another idea also came to me. Who needed teams of spiders when I had the best teams for biological control—the ant colonies of the entire Antiverse.

So my solution? Black lights set on at night to attract the flying alates into the adjacent kingdoms of our other ants, who would then proceed to have a feast.

I was completely elated that we found a solution to our fire ant escape problems. It could have been so easy to resort to some kind of chemical warfare to combat the Fire Nation, but deep inside, I just knew Mother Nature had an eco-friendly solution to my problems somewhere.

I just had to figure it out, and today I felt as though I had cracked a grand code to Mother Nature’s Rubik’s cube!

And as if Mother Nature was giving us a pat on the back for all the great work, in the night, I spotted something that filled my heart with such joy and amazement. Romeo and Juliet were engaging in the ancient dance performed by ancestors millions of years before them.

AC Family, they were spawning.

It was absolutely beautiful to witness and also assuring because, from my research, ram cichlids will mate when water conditions are just perfect!

AC Family, brace yourselves, it looks like we were about to be witnesses to the great miracle of life.

AC Family, things are looking bright for the future of the Selva de Fuego, but honestly speaking, next week’s episode was one of the toughest episodes emotionally I’ve ever had to film on this channel. You will not expect what’s coming up, and I most certainly didn’t!

So trust me on this, guys, you won’t want to miss it, so hit that SUBSCRIBE button and bell icon now so you don’t miss out on this epic ant story, and hit the LIKE button every single time, including now.

AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here for more on the giant spiders in this video. They are just fascinating and awe-inspiring and will always be one of my favorite creatures on the planet!

Also, I’d like to plug my daily vlogging channel. I upload daily vlogs of my travels around the world, and this particular vlog here is a complete vlog of how I built the Selva de Fuego from scratch.

Go check it out, and don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there.

Alright, and now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week!

Last week, we asked:

Why does the Fire Nation queen take her time when moving out of an old nest and into a new one?

Congratulations to Kyler Bentley, who correctly answered:

The Fire Nation queen takes her time when moving out into a new nest because she needs to make sure she knows whether or not the new habitat is safe.

Congratulations, Kyler, you just won a free ant t-shirt from our shop!

In this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask:

Name three things spiders use their silk webbing for.

Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could win a free e-book handbook from our shop.

Hope you can subscribe to the channel, as we upload every Saturday at 8 AM EST.

Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help us keep making more.

It’s ant love forever!