Ever been blown away by the capabilities of ants? If not, this video will blow your mind! Today we watch how fire ants masterfully deal with getting food to its colony by crossing a long tight rope. Check out their brilliant plan!
Fire Ants Walking the Tight Rope
OMG!
I know you guys have read the title, so let’s get to it!
We’ve watched ants do some of the most amazing things on this channel, but what you will see in this video will blow your mind!
Now, I love watching how ants deal with challenges, and this week, we put our most famous ant colony on the channel, the Fire Nation—our massive colony of fire ants—to the test.
Today, we will watch them walk the tightrope.
But make no mistake, AC Family, this is no circus trick.
In today’s episode, you will witness a sheer display of ant ingenuity, as we watch how ants will deal with traveling across a thin invisible nylon wire and transporting some food back to the nest from a location on the other side of my ant room.
Each heart-stopping moment will thrill you, so keep on watching until the end!
AC Family, hold your breath as our ants of the Fire Nation perform a death-defying feat on this episode of the AntsCanada Ant Channel!
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Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!
Presenting the Fire Nation today in the Fire Palace.
I can safely say that this fire ant colony of ours has reached the big 1M. Inside this Rubbermaid bin lives a massive colony of the most aggressive and ravenous ants I have ever owned. EVER!
Look at their majestic castles and nest openings that they’ve created.
I would never dare stick my bare hands in there, as they would instantly be stung by hundreds of brave and territorial workers.
Every day, they eat a lot of roaches, and if you look over, you will see the jar of jam they finished just yesterday.
I love watching this colony work, and today I’m going to subject them to a task I have never before tried.
Today, our ants will walk the ultimate tightrope.
Across the other side of the room stands a platform to which our tightrope, invisible nylon wire, less than a mm in diameter, is tied.
To keep the ants from crawling down the wooden stick, a BBQ skewer, I’ve fixated this small plastic container with baby powder lining the walls.
This will keep the ants from crawling down and escaping.
And now for the incentive, a freshly killed cockroach nymph placed carefully on top.
I wanted to see if these ants would travel across the tightrope, all the way to the other side of my room, and bring the cockroach all the way back to the nest—all while balancing on this tightrope!
Now let’s put this into perspective, AC Family.
If this were to human scale, the ants would have to climb 340 meters up this stick, which is equivalent to just under 4 football fields, then walk this tightrope for a whopping 1.2 km, or just over 13 football fields, grab the massively heavy cockroach, then carry it back the entire distance of over 17 football fields.
If that’s not a feat, I don’t know what is!
Equally as impressive is the fact that this tightrope stands, at human scale, 850 m above the ground, equal to over 9 football fields!
Granted, if the ants were to fall, they wouldn’t go splat like a human would due to terminal velocity, but if an ant were to fall and thereby not be able to get back to its colony, it still would die, so technically, there is a potential life-threatening situation there in case an ant slips and falls.
Walking the Tightrope
Alright, so let’s get to it, AC Family.
Let’s watch the Fire Nation walk the dizzying tightrope all the way across my ant room.
This is going to be epic!
Here we go.
Sticking the stick into the Fire Palace.
It isn’t long before ants start to make the climb.
At first, they simply want to check out the stick.
Some ants seem to be much more interested in the nylon wire knot, but inevitably it wasn’t long until one brave ant started to walk the line.
The ant doesn’t walk too far, but it does make its way back to tell her sisters that, “Hey, there’s a place you can go this way…”
This, in turn, starts a chain reaction of brave ants, venturing out onto the tightrope, slowly and gradually walking further and further, turning back each time to inform the colony of where they had gone.
It seems the Fire Nation is now aware of this new foreign object in the Fire Palace, and more importantly, of the new bridge to somewhere.
Notice the ants moving quickly within the tubes.
Wow! Check out this ant.
It’s determined, but then it gets a bit insecure and turns back.
I don’t mind this because every time an ant returns, it brings with it news of where it has been, and I know it won’t be long before more and more ants will attempt to walk the tightrope.
Finally, one ant possesses the guts to travel further than any ant had gone before.
Wow! It reaches the halfway point, then turns back.
Guys, this is crazy.
Imagine being this ant? Balancing on the wire this entire way.
The idea makes me super nervous.
Our incentive lies there, waiting for the first ant to reach it.
Over time, more and more ants begin to travel the tightrope.
Let’s watch to see who will make it to the end.
It seems most ants are only able to make it to the midway point before turning back.
Reaching the End
Almost 2 hours later, I finally spotted an ant that dared to venture past the halfway point.
This ant was the bravest so far.
It crawled and grasped for the wire as it traveled upside down, closer and closer to our end platform.
Wow! It’s getting so close!
And just when it seemed it was going to reach the end, it turns back to tell the rest of the colony how far it traveled.
Watching this was just unreal!
It kept me on the edge of my seat.
More ants are on the way.
Will these ants be the ones to reach the end?
No, they too turn back.
I began to wonder if any of the ants would ever reach the end platform, but just as I began to have my doubts, one brave worker finally approached the end platform.
I held my breath.
And, yes, our very first worker makes it across to the other side.
It stops to smell the cockroach with its antennae but first decides to take a trip downwards to check out the area.
It isn’t able to go far, of course, because it couldn’t climb past the baby powder barrier, so it eventually makes its way back up to the cockroach.
It suddenly shows signs of excitement.
What she is doing now is she is covering the entire area with pheromones, indicating that there is food here so her fellow sisters know what to expect when they arrive, and speaking of which, here comes a second ant to make the death-defying walk to the end platform.
They instantly make contact.
Many ants are making their journey across the tightrope now.
More ants make it to the end platform, and it isn’t long before a mini-party develops.
Return to the Nest
Check out the end platform 30 minutes after.
Wow! Many members have completed the journey now, and many more still on their way!
The entire colony is now aware of this mysterious, fabled place with a delicious cockroach, so more and more ants are seen embarking on their tightrope journeys.
The sight was truly magnificent to witness.
But now the question was, how were they going to deal with bringing this heavy cockroach back to the nest.
I was totally not prepared for the idea they came up with!
All night, I stayed up watching and filming the entire Fire Nation.
Were they actually going to carry it across?
Suddenly, the ants showed evidence of a brilliant idea.
The Fire Nation began breaking up the cockroach into pieces.
Breaking the cockroach into smaller pieces for transport back to the nest was ingenious!
It meant the ants wouldn’t need to carry and maneuver the entire cockroach across the entire distance on this tightrope.
Had they done that, they truly risked completely falling or dropping their find.
And surprisingly, not a single ant had fallen yet.
These ants were tightrope walking pros!
Check out how the larger ants hang upside down while the smaller ones are able to walk on top of it.
The ants began to carry the cockroach piece by piece, ever so skillfully, all the way across to the other side, back to the nest.
Watch how amazingly this ant manages to avoid crashing into other ants while en route.
What we are witnessing here, AC Family, is truly a magnificent display of balance and strength.
Conclusion
All night, the ants continued to bring pieces back to the nest, while more and more ants made the distant trek across the tightrope to help with breaking up the cockroach and transporting the pieces back home.
The next morning, I saw the ants bringing back the final piece of the cockroach across the tightrope.
It was just brilliant and beautiful.
Watching the ants do this truly showed me the hidden powers of ants, how they were able to travel on the thinnest of bridges to food, and how their problem-solving skills can reason that breaking up a cockroach would be better than transporting the entire cockroach back to the nest, which had this been entirely on the ground and not high up in the air, the ants would have done instead!
So, AC Fam, do you guys think our other colonies would be able to pull this off?
Do you think they would do the same thing the Fire Nation did?
Let me know in the comments section which colony of ours on this channel you would like to possibly see walk the tightrope, too.
Today, I was truly inspired by the magic of ant teamwork, their bravery to explore what lies beyond, the sheer awesomeness of their strategy, and the simplicity of their execution.
Ants truly are some of the most amazing creatures we have on the planet.
Thanks for watching another episode of the AntsCanada Ant Channel, and until next week, it’s ant love forever!
Wow! So did this impress you, AC Family?
It sure was pretty cool, right?
AC Inner Colony, I’ve placed a hidden video for you here if you just want to watch extended play footage of the fire ants walking the tightrope and transporting pieces of the cockroach back to the nest.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What type of acid is found in the defensive fluids of the millipedes in our last video?
Congratulations to Tristan Indrayanto who correctly answered Hydrochloric Acid.
Congratulations, Tristan! You just won a free ant t-shirt from our shop.
And for this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask:
Fill in the blank: If an ant were to fall from the tightrope, the ant would not die at landing due to ______.
Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could win some free test tubes from our shop, perfect for housing your newly caught queen ants.
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we release a brand new ant video every Saturday at 8 AM EST.
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It’s ant love forever!