Welcome to Pantdora, my 1000-gallon cloud rainforest vivarium, where the addition of a ‘grim reaper’ praying mantis and crickets unveils new secrets of the ongoing Great Ant War.

In my giant 1000 gallon cloud rainforest vivarium, called Pantdora, the established ecosystem faces the addition of a ‘grim reaper’, a notorious insect predator known as a praying mantis, as well as, a colony of crickets. But with the addition of these new animals, came a surprising discovery regarding the Great Ant War that was taking place within Pantdora.

I Added a Grim Reaper Into My Giant Rainforest Vivarium

Welcome to Pantdora, my 1000-gallon cloud rainforest vivarium, complete with a vast array of mind-blowing flora and fauna, all dependent and interconnected through a food web, we’ve carefully built, an awesome ecosystem within glass. It has its own automated climate control, photoperiod, clouds, winds, rains, and recently a fully stocked aquatic blackwater system. A special biological project of mine, Pantdora was designed to learn more about ecosystems and how ants, as well as other creatures, truly live in the wild. We’ve just begun, but already the journey of discovery has been nothing short of mind-blowing.

The ants of Pantdora have been involved in an ongoing war, with an ant empire defeating enemy invasive ants, only to fall in glory at the hands of other enemy ants; we’ve watched Pantdoran creatures grow up, feed, and hunt; and every time we introduce newly selected creatures into our rainforest, we gain a greater insight into the secret and intriguing workings of Mother Nature. But this week, due to a popular request by you, guys, I prepared a grim reaper, a notorious predator of the insect world, with next-level intelligence and ferocity unlike anything currently living inside the vivarium, to be added to our rainforest. But after adding it in, nothing could have prepared me for the chain of events that would unfold, leading me to make the ultimate surprising discovery within Pantdora, that made me cry out “Eureka!”.

This is the craziest story of what happened when I added a grim reaper to my giant rainforest vivarium which led me to a great revelation, Part 9 of my ecosystem vivarium series, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the BELL ICON. Welcome to the AC Family. Crickets Enjoy! At the Eastern end of Pantdora, our golden scaly dragon, the resident sun skink, was basking in the highlands, atop the rocks of Blackwater Falls. “Oh, Sun Skink,” I beckoned. “What?” “I have something for you. Come down from there.” “Ummm…” he hesitated. “It’s food!” “Ok..” The sun skink made his way down the rock cliff, as I dumped the new colony of crickets onto Pantdoran soils. The crickets instantly began to disperse and wander in all directions to explore the rainforest. The lizard flicked its tongue to smell the new food that had been added to the lands. The perfect-sized cricket approached and the sun skink leaped down, took a quick look, then bam! Caught it! It slipped out of his grip, but he caught it and dragged it into the shadows of the driftwood to eat in private. These crickets were actually part of a second round of herbivores for an integration program aimed at getting an effective breeding population of crickets within Pantdora, seeing as they do such a great job at keeping plants trimmed, and providing food for the predators.

And speaking of predators, another animal was waiting in the sidelines to be introduced to Pantdora, a predator notorious for being an extremely skilled hunter with a voracious appetite. A praying mantis began to clean its antennae, in preparation to fulfill its purpose within our rainforest as a top hunter, and I was certain watching it hunt and feed within our rainforest would be a sight to behold, but looking back, I had no idea at the time what craziness was about to come once this grim reaper would be added to our rainforest. Male Crickets But meanwhile, the crickets were just getting settled into their new haven. Going from egg carton to this was a total dream come true! But the ones on the greatest mission right now, were the males, and you’re about to see why.

I spotted this male climbing the vines, as he searched fervently for his special place. For what you ask? Well, his stage, of course. There’s a reason why a group of crickets is called an “orchestra”, and one of the most well-known aspects of cricket society was their passion for musical performance. Each of the males immediately sought out a spot in the rainforest to become their stage, and once they did find their personal spot, the real show would begin. By rubbing their front wings together, male crickets are able to create their signature chirp noises, by way of file-like serrations on the wings’ edges which rub against a sharp edge of the wings called a ‘scraper’. Once rubbed rapidly, it creates a chirp which in crickets, aims at attracting the females. You see, to win a female’s heart, a male cricket needs to woo her by singing the right song into the female’s ears, known as tympana, which are positioned above the knees of the front legs, as you can see here. Now to us humans, we hear this, but to the crickets, they hear something completely different. An orchestra of crickets gathers to listen to this male vying for the love of this female. “Your body is fat! Your legs are fat!” He sang loudly with the bravado of an Idol contestant. But the reception from his Crawla Abdul was lukewarm. In fact, none of the females seemed at all impressed. “Buzz off! This is my stage!” The male threatened, defending his stage from other males who could threaten his chances of successfully breeding. “You, too! Out!” “OK, where were we? Oh yes! Your body is round! Your legs are round. Your antennae are ugly and brown!” “Ummm thanks, but no thanks. I appreciate that, but please get away.” The male continued to chase off any other males stepping on his stage, but the reality was, no matter how many times he tried, the female would not be wooed. He was a bad singer and this female was unimpressed by his rather brash compositions. But though this male had failed, another male, who heard everything nearby, felt he could do a better job and he flared his wings in preparation for his performance. “Alright, my lady. Sorry you had to hear that terrible noise! Cover your ears! Don’t listen to him.” This was his time to shine! When the male was ready, he positioned himself in front of the female, and began his song “We gon eat grass together. I gon’ hop 10,000 times.” “Oh,” She was receptive, she liked his song very much. “No matter what the weather, I’ll always be with you, and help you through, I love you, please have my babies, tooo!” And that was it. In the world of crickets, it’s not who sings the loudest, but who sings the best song, and the final note sealed the deal for her, as she tip-toed to allow the male to slip under her. With his pair of cerci, he felt around for the correct docking port to deliver his packet of little soldiers called a spermatophore, and after a minute, the packet was deposited successfully. This plug would continue to deposit sperm, as well as, keep other males from mating with her. A new adult male having just emerged from a shed was still white and hardening, and he too would soon fulfill his destiny to begin singing to win the heart of a lucky female somewhere. Nearby, another male was serenading a potential female. She was responsive, but he was not secure in his singing, rubbing his wings very unsurely and rather quietly. He was nervous, and was letting the butterflies get to him. He continued to sing as she stepped further out of her burrow to listen to him, which only made him more nervous, and his voice cracked! “Oh, what a turn-off.” The female made a u-turn and headed back into the burrow. Not impressed. Poor male. But he wasn’t about to give up just yet. He came back to face the female and began to sing to her looking straight into her eyes and flirting with his antennae. He moved closer and soon she was entranced by his performance. Then the next step: he turned around to sing away from her, which actually made the song louder to the female, as the shape of his wings acted like a megaphone projecting his song right into her ears. The song once again beckoned her from her burrow. He wasn’t going to mess up this time! The newly shed male came along to eavesdrop on the scene. At the climax of his ballad, he slowly moved in and she allowed, ultimately sealing the deal to their union. The spermatophore was ejected, then he attached it to the female and the deed was done. She instantly turned and ran to her burrow. I wondered if the male would simply run away now that he’d successfully passed on his genes, but no, he returned to the female and remained there by her side as they both rested, for she had his heart now, and his spermatophore. But as for the newly shed male, “Ok, innocence gone! But, I think I can manage to do this.” Cricket mating was happening all over Pantdora, but as sweet as all of this cricket reproduction was, it was now time to add in their limiter to do its work at controlling populations of prey creatures like the crickets. I grabbed the mantis and proceeded to place it into Pantdora. “Welcome to Pantdora, my dear mantis, your new home.” Mantis Encounter The mantis instantly locked eyes on the crickets. “Well, what have we here?” A black crazy ant began to attack the mantis’ foot, but the mantis casually chewed it off. “Be gone, rat!” The mantis could not believe the abundance of food all around. What an amazing place this was that food should be freely frolicking all about. Instead of lunging right away, the highly intelligent mantis decided to stay put and observe. Suddenly a young cricket began to get close, and the mantis instantly began to sway like a leaf blowing in the wind to disguise itself, but another cricket came by, and caused it to turn around and run away, unknowing that it had just saved its life. The mantis watched the scene as the crickets made their way off not knowing that they both just had a close brush with death. All the creatures were intellectually inferior to this mantis, and the mantis knew it. An acrobat ant went unnoticed as it threatened the mantis from below its heels. A male cricket got striking distance close to the mantis, but instead of striking at it, the mantis decided to move. It had something else in mind, it wanted to check out. I watched in wonder as it swayed like a leaf blowing in the wind up the stump, and when it got higher up, yup, just as it expected. It had smelled that an entire herd of crickets were up here, and this was where the mantis decided it was going to have its dinner. A couple of crickets were in the middle of a courtship ritual, right amidst a bustling trail of black crazy ants. The female stepped over the trail and waited to see if the male would also cross over the black crazy ant trail to pursue her. The male continued to sing to her from the other side of the black crazy ant trail. “Are you going to prove your love for me and step through?” “Ummm…” He stopped to think for a moment. “Step over the ant line!” “Hmm…” “Now!” “No.” The male turned around to look for another female to sing to. “Ugh…” The black crazy ants were busy moving their brood from the top of the stump all the way Black Crazy Ants down to another location in the stump.

As we’ve been seeing in the past few weeks, these invasive black crazy ants which started off as a small colony camped out in a corner of the vivarium soon grew to a massive supercolony with hundreds of queens and were now filling every possible available crevice within the stump with their babies, and now they were moving some of the brood to satellite nests at other places around the rainforest… Umm ahem. Excuse me Sahara. You’re in my shot. Thank you… Anyway, this stump used to be home to our native marauder ants, who prior to these black crazy ants moving in, were always seen trailing from the stump in the most impressive of numbers. I missed seeing the marauders dragging food into their nest, cooperatively lifting truly incredible weights. Now, I seldom see marauders here at this stump, which seems to be currently dominated by the black crazy ants. I was heartbroken to know that our marauder ants were likely being wiped out by the black crazy ants, away from our view within the stump. But, guys, little did I know, there was more to this story in the Great Ant War of Pandora, and I was going to find out about it all very soon.

The Great Ant War The mantis couldn’t wait to have dinner, and watched as a male cricket came along and got into a squabble with another male, and sent it right BAM into its clutches. There was a quick struggle, and once the cricket was properly gripped, the mantis went in to feast on its flesh. The cricket kicked and struggled as it was being eaten alive. The mantis went in to tear into the cricket’s leg meat first. Mmmm tarsi licking good! It then gnawed off a leg and proceeded to feast on leg meat. A young cricket came wandering around not noticing its colleague being eaten. When it had enough cricket leg meat, it then proceeded to have a bite of cricket breast, chewing into the thorax, as the cricket began to bleed at its neck. I watched wide-eyed in horror, as the mantis continued to feed nonchalantly as it had many times over the course of its entire life. It was no wonder these creatures had this fearsome reputation they did as ravenous predators in the insect world. The mantis continued feeding on the now dead cricket… ok, no, living cricket. The acrobat ant came back to throw death threats at the mantis, which again went unnoticed by the mantis who was enjoying his cricket feast. As I watched the mantis devouring his new kill, it only made me wonder what impact it would have on the creatures of Pantdora, and how its new presence within the rainforest would influence the ecological balance of things. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit worried that maybe we had underestimated the impact of adding a mantis to the rainforest, and had let loose this grim reaper into Pantdora. Female Cricket Royal Rumble On the forest floor, a new set of drama was happening, this time among the female crickets.

While the males were fighting over stage space, the females were fighting over egg-laying space. Pregnant females were now busy laying their eggs into the rich and moistened Pantdoran soils. The females use their long ovipositor, an appendage that acts as a hypodermic needle to pierce the ground in order to deposit the eggs at just the right depth for development. But not all soils were of the ideal softness, and so females with the best soils defended their space wholeheartedly, and this was where the real catfights began. Welcome to the female cricket royal rumble! It was then that I noticed a sad sight. This female had been injured and was bleeding at her thorax, likely from an injury from a fight, but the urge to lay her eggs and pass on life to the next generation superseded her desire to rest. There was no hope for her to recover now though, and she would be dying today, but at least she would have given all her young the chance to life once their eggs were laid beneath the soils. In fact, all the females would be dying shortly after laying their eggs, as they would have fulfilled their life’s purpose. It was harsh, but this was simply the reality of cricket life, and plus there were other more painful ways to die as a cricket. The Mantis The mantis continued to chew through the cricket’s body, as it continued to flail its legs, still very much so alive. But this mantis was loving the tastes, flavors, and textures of this gourmet meal. I gasped when I saw the gaping hole into the cricket’s thorax exposing the cricket’s anatomy within. Savage! Mantises have always intrigued me as far as predatory insects go. They’re thought to have evolved from cockroach-like ancestors, with the earliest mantis fossils dating back to the Cretaceous Period, as in dinosaur times. They’ve clearly evolved to be effective hunters, with their sturdy frame, lightning quick movements, and those spiky arms that specialize in gripping their prey while they eat, not to mention intelligence that you could just see in their eyes. These were definitely creatures to respect! The black crazy ants could smell the cricket carcass now and were beginning to boil up from their nest in anticipation. A young cricket came by to inspect. “You choose death if you come any closer!” The cricket went away, and the mantis shifted over to eat his meal in private. It was then that I noticed the mantis breathing. Looking at both the cricket and the mantis, I could see that breathing mechanics were the same in these insects. Their abdomens would expand and contract, pushing air in and out of openings in their abdomen called spiracles. Watching the mantis breathe as it was chewing up its meal was truly a sight to behold! The cricket attempted to get close again, but the mantis kicked it away. “Get outta here, or you’re next!” 5 minutes later, I came back to the half-eaten cricket cast off for the rats to feed on. The black crazy ants relished this free meal from the gods. The mantis was done, and didn’t want to finish the entire thing. Guess it was full, as it began to sway its way up towards the canopy. So interesting to see it travel this way. Even though there really wasn’t anything in Pantdora currently that would prey on it, mantises really count on this swaying movement to mimic a leaf blowing in the wind to blend in with their surroundings and avoid predation. I watched as the mantis set up station at a top vine to rest, as it digested its food up in the canopy. It was now a member of the Pantdoran food chain and content with its new and abundant rainforest kingdom. Arachnophobes, look away.

The Rhino Beetle It was evening and our nighttime creatures were beginning to awake. Our young huntsman spider lay in wait for prey to pass. It could smell the crickets all around and couldn’t wait to feast. One of our two house geckos was also wide awake and ready to feed. But not all nighttime creatures were predatory. Up in the vines was our resident rhino beetle, I’ve named ‘Rocksteady’. What a titan this massive beetle was with his impressive horns, as he closed in on a cricket. “Out of my way!” He slapped. The cricket obliged and traveled down the vine. Like the mantis, no other creature in Pantdora would mess with Rocksteady. But this cricket had something to say. “Ummm, I’m sorry Mr. Rhino, but this vine is much shorter than I expected, and uh, it’s a very far drop to the bottom.” Rocksteady continued down the vine, as the cricket began to panic and struggle as it was boxed backwards towards the vine’s edge. And then! Ahhhhh! The cricket had no choice but to jump, to which Rocksteady laughed. “Haha! That made my day.” He turned around and marched back up the vine. Speaking of the vines, new leaves were blooming now more than ever along the banyan vines throughout Pantdora, and the reason for this exponential leaf growth was the newly stocked pond.

As we saw in the last episode, we added new residents to Pantdora’s waters, including fish, shrimp, snails, and crabs, and all the ammonia and nitrates they were generating via their waste, was totally being eaten up by the extensive root system that was sprouting from all the vines and feeding all the new leaf growth! I loved seeing it! But as I was examining the pond, I suddenly spotted this mysterious creature. Have a look! What is that? What is that creature? The insect was some larva with gills on the end of its abdomen. I watched it climb one of the vines, totally dodging the fish, making its way up to the surface. Anyone know what creature that is? It must have come in with the plants and pond water from my pond. Is that a tiny dragonfly or damselfly larva? If so, how cool! Anyway, it was amazing to see the waters were bringing nourishment and new life to the vines, but little did I know, I would be making a very interesting discovery about these vines later that night. Night fell, and the nighttime creatures were out. Nighttime Creatures Our other house gecko was up and ready to feed. The forest roaches came out to play.

Our bush cricket Lady Katy was also awake and on her way to search for a leafy meal in the canopy, but she took notice of the new resident that was completely eye-locked onto her. Bewildered, the mantis stared at Lady Katy, and I began to wonder if he would pursue her as his next meal. From what I could tell, she was a little too big a meal for him. Up in the canopy was Miss Piggy, our resident female tree frog, a cricket, and Kermit, our male tree frog. Kermit couldn’t wait to feast on crickets which he couldn’t believe were crawling everywhere. It was a feast for frogs. Miss Piggy lay patiently for the right moment to swipe up the cricket on their vine, as Kermit watched. She sat as still as air waiting for just the right moment to pounce on it. The moment was near now. Almost time…. About to pounce in 3 – 2 – 1… Oh dear! No! Kermit had ruined it all. “You couldn’t help yourself, could you?!” Miss Piggy exclaimed. “I’m sorry, honey!” said Kermit. “I’ll try better next time!” It was all good, though, because they knew there were a ton of crickets tonight to feast on, and it would be a total buffet. Lady Katy I was suddenly distracted by the abrupt sounds of crunching, and to my surprise it was Lady Katy, totally munching on a vine! What?! So she was the culprit to all the vines strangely breaking apart. Over the past several weeks, I initially thought it was the vines themselves detaching at various random places around Pantdora, but seeing this, I discovered that all along, it was Lady Katy! Aha! I thought she only ate leaves. Guess not! Oh, Lady Katy… but believe it or not, aside from this dietary reveal, Lady Katy’s biggest secret of all was soon to be discovered, a secret I completely didn’t expect! From a dark corner of my Ant Room, another pair of unique creatures were also feeding in the darkness of their lair just outside Pantdora. Lurking in the shadows these gargoyle-like creatures climbed the walls of their home in a flourish of claws and fur. My sugar gliders were busy with their nightly exploration for food. But the female, Honey, was done for the night. She went straight to bed. But Suga, the male, whom she recently paired with was busy consuming his superworms. Sugar gliders are marsupials native to Australia and parts of Indonesia, and they are extraordinary animals. Suga’s monkey-like hands held onto his superworm as he munched away. When he was finished he began to look for more food. Suga is a rescue, I adopted from someone who couldn’t keep him anymore. He had a nub for a foot, not sure what happened, from when he was young. Regardless, it didn’t stop him from getting around. He made his way to his other bowl of chicken breast and fruits. Their diet is quite complex and hard to prepare in captivity, but worth watching him munch happily away, don’t you think? It was then that his wife called him to bed. “Coming, Honey!” They were trying to have their very first set of twins.

Morning Maintenance By morning, Lady Katy had left some vine pieces on the forest floor, as well as some poop stains splattered all over the front glass, as she always does, which brings me now to my morning maintenance routine. A lot of you have been asking what it takes to maintain a vivarium like Pantdora, and well, Pandora kinda maintains itself but for cleaning, this is what I do. Before even opening the tank I always check the edges of the window first, in case something might be waiting to jump out. Then using only eco-friendly products, I go in with a paper towel and a squeegee to clean the glass. I often need to use a ladder to actually step into the vivarium, to get to the hard to reach areas. I try to be as non-intrusive as possible and keep an eye on the animals all around me, and try my best not to step on ants. Today, I also went in to plant more plants up on the rock wall, on the forest floor, at the rock bank of the pond, which made it look a lot more beautiful, and even tillandsias on the side mesh of the tank. I also scattered fresh leaf litter onto the rainforest floor, as an ecosystem event. The mantis was busy sunning himself near the heat lamps, warming up to start his day. Rocksteady and the cricket he made jump off the vine were eating side by side, no hard feelings, on a rotting piece of mango. I then spotted a cute jumping spider that wanted into the vivarium, so I caught it and released it. What a colorful and cute little one! I smiled watching it explore and jump around. I spotted some shed skin that belonged to our young grasshopper we’ve watched grow up in Pantdora, but look, there were two now! How neat! And what else was cool, was that I spotted mealybugs! See those fuzzy white critters on the asparagus fern? Those are plant insects, and ants love them because they excrete a sweet substance called honeydew that the ants can milk from the mealybugs, like milk from dairy cows. Assuming the mealybugs don’t get out of control, I couldn’t wait to see ants tending to them! But the thought suddenly made me sad. The ants. Inside, I wished it would have been the marauder ants to tend to and milk these mealybugs, especially because they were located right at the foot of the Hallelujah Tree Stump where the marauders were nested when they first moved into Pantdora. But I knew, if ever, it would be the black crazy ants to claim dominion over these mealybugs, sadly.

That was until, I made the most epic discovery later that night. Marauder Ant Discovery The full moon’s light bathed the misty forest floor with a glow, and when the mist cleared, I noticed a peculiar movement in the soil. What is that? Wait a sec! AC Family, it was trail, an active one, and to my utter delight, it was our marauder ants, and they were trailing in the greater numbers that I remember them trailing in, from when we first got them. This was awesome! Turns out our marauders were not dwindling in numbers like I had thought. They were still very alive, and look, I see them carrying seeds, there’s a major, and I even spotted them carrying a supermajor somewhere. Funny, as usually it’s the other way around! I was happy to see them trailing like this. I guess the marauders decided to start trailing at night only, which looking back, made total sense because since adding the heat lamps for our sun skink to the tank, the marauders probably thought it was the start of summer, during which marauder ants switch their foraging expeditions from daytime to nighttime, to escape the heat. Eureka! By early morning, I spotted where the marauders were trailing from. They had established a few holes in the soils, and had moved their nest from the tree stump to the soils. No wonder they weren’t really seen trailing from the holes in the stump. This was amazing to see, as I was sure the marauders would do well in soil, because black crazy ants were really flimsily built and sacrificed strength for speed, and therefore weren’t good diggers, unlike the marauders. Black crazy ants mainly nest in crevices. The marauders would be safer underground than within the stump, so they must have decided to give up life in the stump for a safer life within the soils. A few marauders were still entering the stump which meant they still had some rooms within it, but the majority of the colony was now clearly in the soils. It was then that I also spotted something else amazing! See that golden creature? That is a golden species of silverfish that lives symbiotically with the ants. They eat up their poop and garbage, while the ants provide protection and a home for them, a friend to the ants. How cool, and what a revelation!

Another discovery: ready for this? In the night, a loud chirping was coming from Pantdora that was totally different from anything I’d ever heard. And guess who it was! Turns out, Lady Katy was not a lady, after all, but a Manly Stanley. He’s a boy, and he was singing to attract a female! Guess I confused his cerci for an ovipositor! Oops! Sorry, Stanley! I’ll try to look for a female for you. Another surprising discovery was that our mantis, which I initially thought might be a voracious, Grim Reaper/serial killer within our rainforest, was actually a modest and gentle creature, except when he was hungry, but I never did see him eat another insect, and guessed he had his fill after that first cricket, but was just happy to be around now. Overall, this week was quite the rollercoaster ride of discovery. I loved the progress of our biological project of Pantdora, and couldn’t wait to see what was ahead. I managed to catch another tree frog and house gecko from my giant home aviary, and placed them into Pantdora to add to our colony of geckos and tree frogs. And as I caught sight of the new tree frog staring in wonder at the new paradise into which he now lived, I couldn’t help but gaze in awe at the beauty of Pantdora, and feel great pride in the work we’ve done, the care we’ve put into making Pantdora become the tropical Shangri-la that it was. We worked hard to get here, but as they say, you reap what you sow, and this week, my greatest Eureka moment was realizing that to achieve paradise, all you need is love. Inside the Tree Stump But going back to the black crazy ant hoard for a sec, so many of you commented wishing you guys could somehow see what the inside of the stump was like. With the ants and other creatures always traveling in and out of various openings in the stump, we always suspected there was quite an extensive labyrinth within the stump, a constant topic of curiosity for us, piquing our imagination.

Understanding what the inside of the stump looks like and where the two teams of ants within are actually living, could help give us clues as to how we can better control the population of black crazy ants and possibly support our marauders. And so AC Family, I finally have a way to peek inside the stump and it just arrived in the mail. Oh, endoscopic camera! Time to have a peek inside the Hallelujah Tree Stump. Oh man! Vote in my community tab to affect this story! Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every SAT 8AM EST. Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help us keep making more. It’s ant love forever!