2 Month Evolution of My Giant Rainforest Vivarium

NEW VIDEO: My Giant Rainforest Vivarium Has Officially Become an Ecosystem | 9 Month Update


Welcome to Season 3, Episode 6 of my Ecosystem Vivarium Series, where we celebrate the 9-month anniversary of my giant cloud rainforest ecosystem—a thriving, biodiverse wonder teeming with complex symbioses, surprising new creatures, and unexpected plant growth, all within the glass walls of this tropical paradise.

 

My giant cloud rainforest ecosystem vivarium has hit 9 months of age, and has certainly evolved into a biological wonder in such a short amount of time. The flora and fauna within have become so biodiverse, the relationships and symbioses complex, and the tropical ecosystem robust. Walking through our rainforest within glass today is a truly mind blowing experience, as I continue to discover new creatures never before seen, and plants growing from places I least expected. But our 9 monthsary tour was not without some surprises. Hope you enjoy this Season 3, Episode 6 of my Ecosystem Vivarium Series.

 

 

My Giant Rainforest Vivarium Has Officially Become an Ecosystem | 9 Month Update

If you could recreate life, would you do it? If you could reconstruct a living, breathing, self-proliferating ecosystem, would you try? If you could witness with your own two eyes, never-before-seen moments that take place within the depths of a rainforest, would you venture in? Well, I did, and every day, I spot new creatures stepping into the light from the darkened vegetation, whole societies industrializing in the vines, and the most sacred of rituals being carried out between life forms so ancient, they predate mankind in provenance by millions of years. Welcome to the magical world of Pantdora and Orchadia, my giant cloud rainforest ecosystem vivarium, an ultimate reconstruction of Mother Nature within glass, now 9 months old, and with a hidden surprise for me to discover.

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Our rainforest has evolved beyond anything I could have ever imagined since its creation nine months ago. If you’re new, this is what Pantdora used to look like, and today it’s a lush and bountiful tropical forest with a ton more creatures, plants, fungi, and even its own upper tree layer on the floor above, and today, we’ll dive right into our forest and marvel at all the cool relationships the creatures have. I’ll show you some of the amazing new creatures I spotted (and yes, even to this day, I’m spotting new creatures), as well as catch up with familiar friends, and finally, we’ll also be adding in a few new species for biodiversity. But as fun as this nine-month tour update was going to be in my mind, little did I know, an event was about to take place on this nine-month anniversary that would remind me that Mother Nature isn’t always fun and games.

But our journey begins in one of the most vital parts of the rainforest, the blackwater pond we call ‘Aqua Noctis’. It’s fed by a waterfall that passes through UV lighting, mosses, little pockets in the rocks where beneficial bacteria live, and various rough surfaces which clean and oxygenate the waters, and has allowed life within the pond to persist despite no maintenance. A pair of guppies were perusing through the rocks. The female was busy grazing from algae carpets, but the male had other ideas in mind.

“So, babe. Let’s have kids!”

“No, I’m busy eating. Not today!”

Sadly, these two were the only two guppies left in the pond, as our resident caiman had been eating them over time, and so them breeding was the last hope for their species, which has lasted many generations in Aqua Noctis so far. But the female was not in the mood and could care less about breeding. “Leave me alone!” she bickered. But the male, with his shiny colorful fins, was not going to take no for an answer. Over the next few minutes, I watched as the male kept trying his luck, while the female continued to reject him and feed from the rocks. Poor guy. Let’s hope she changes her mind at some point and decides to breed with him. Soon, he lost her.

“Hey, where’d you go?”

The scarcity in guppies within Aqua Noctis has allowed a new community of surprising creatures to thrive. Around this fallen leaf, I noticed some tiny movements. A small snail was racing across the undersurface of the leaf, but what truly caught my attention was the abundance of these tiny creatures. The smallest aquatic insects were seen crawling all around the leaf’s edge. I wasn’t sure what species they were, as they didn’t quite look like Daphnia, another very common water insect. But they sure were cute and quite energetic. They gathered as a community feeding on either the decaying leaf matter or microorganisms that were found there. I loved their intricate design and hey, are those babies we can see through their skin? What peculiar little creatures. They were definitely introduced here by way of aquatic plants in the past, and in the large absence of the guppies, have begun to thrive in numbers in the rainforest, which was awesome.

Moving on to land, a land crab was relaxing. I rarely spot these crabs out in the open like this, as they usually emerge at night, so it was cool to see him at this time. Though they do dip into the waters every now and then, these land crabs do not stay there as there is also a species of aquatic crabs living in the pond that do not like competition. The crabs are excellent at eating organic and decaying matter and are part of the essential cleanup crew for our rainforest’s wet areas.

But speaking of unwelcome competition, I then spotted these creatures convening in the leaves. These are ghost ants, really tiny invasive ants that have so far gone about their business in the rainforest relatively unnoticed and on the down-low. They’re called ghost ants due to the fact that their semi-transparent bodies make them look like floating heads. They managed to break into Pantdora, seeing as they are small enough to fit through the mesh screen. Their queens, however, aren’t small enough to get in through the mesh holes, thank goodness, and I haven’t seen queens here yet, which was a good sign. Though they haven’t been too much of an issue in our rainforest so far, I definitely have been keeping my eye on them because in overwhelming numbers they can totally destroy an ecosystem and outcompete other native ants.

But I was hopeful about the native ants of our forest. A golden carpenter ant was seen frolicking the asparagus ferns. It was busy licking the leaves of honeydew produced by the mealybugs. When I had introduced a colony of these ants into the forest, way back in the two-month update video of this rainforest, I had no idea if they would do well, as they had a lot of competition for food, resources, and nesting space, but as you can see they’ve been doing just fine after 7 months in Pantdora. Based on when I last saw their queen move in, they had found a place within the Hallelujah Tree Stump and were living somewhere inside.

Speaking of which, guys, this stump was like a high-rise condo building for life. So many creatures lived inside it. A dwarf ant was doing some house cleaning. It struggled to lift something which it planned on throwing over the edge. Aha! An old cricket leg the colony had finished, but it was having some issues with navigating.

The stump was also home to a termite colony that had been introduced since the very start, already living inside the stump when I put it in, who built this cool tunnel made of their own poop some two months ago. The poop tunnel is for protection as the termites move around to different areas of the stump because no rainforest condo building is safe.

I spotted a jumping spider, hoping to find prey, perhaps a termite wandering out of its poop tunnel. Its abdomen looked like a brown Deadpool mask. It spotted the dwarf ants doing nest maintenance, but it had no interest in them. It crawled down the stump and began to look around. Its eyes were so interesting, the real ones, I mean. I wondered if the abdomen eyes had a purpose, like fooling predators into thinking they couldn’t sneak up on it. They couldn’t anyway, as jumping spiders like this female have very good vision. She looked well-fed and I was happy to see it doing its thing on the stump.

But some new residents had also found value in the stump real estate and had moved in without me knowing. I noticed some large ants moving in and out of an opening in the stump. Asian bullet ants! They were carrying clumps of what looked like dark soil pieces up the stump and into the shadows of their nest somewhere inside. In fact, every few seconds, I would spot the ants with these soil pieces bringing the goods home. My guess was it was bringing home earthworm cast back to the nest for its larvae to consume and digest, and later regurgitate for the workers to eat. Interesting behavior to see and interesting to see that they had chosen to live inside the stump, as I always thought this species was exclusively soil-dwelling. Guess not, and identifying these new and unknown behaviors is exactly why I love observing the creatures in Pantdora.

The Asian bullet ants were so thorough at sweeping through the forest, even collecting peculiar things from the vines that they brought back to the nest. A pair of Asian bullet ants were celebrating their new find: a big piece of gecko poop, full of a ton of usable nutrients. A worker picked up the poop and began to make its way home, but hmmm… how to get off this leaf. It eventually decided to take another route. It headed down the plant, moved across the surface of some driftwood, made its way to ground level, then climbed the asparagus fern and eventually onto the Hallelujah Tree Stump to the nest. I was quite happy to see the Asian bullet ants thriving like this in Pantdora, but little did I know, the Asian bullet ants were fueling up with food to gear up for a very big operation soon.

It was then that I spotted yet another new stump resident. A golden spiny ant was also wandering the stump, coming super close to a spider web, and a ton of spider babies were emerging, but this ant was used to webs, and could care less that she was trodding on spider territory. I expected an angry spider mom to come shooting out of that hole at any moment. But the ant was searching for something really important. I watched as she began to carefully inspect the various cracks in the driftwood, until she found what she was looking for and picked up a mouthful of dead asparagus fern leaves. Happily, she scurried back on her path. Awesome! She was collecting debris for her nest. These spiny ants collect debris and glue them together using silk webbing from their larvae, and I couldn’t wait to see where the ants were nesting, as I wasn’t sure where they had created a nest, and then I saw it.

The worker entered an unsuspecting hole in the stump. Wow! The spiny ants decided to nest here! I watched it leave the clump of leaves at the entrance for other workers to take and use as needed before leaving to collect more. How awesome! I would have never seen that very inconspicuous entrance had I not followed the ant home. What a great location for a nest!

But then, a commotion caught my eye in the leaf litter. It was a battle between a young roach and a giant trap-jaw ant. The giant trap-jaw had just stunned the roach with its lighting powerful jaw snaps.

“Come here little roach. There you are! Come here! Come here! You can’t get away!”

Falling victim to the trap-jaw’s mandibles is enough to stun any small insect. The ant decided to take a breather while the roach died, and clean itself before the next step. Suddenly a huge cricket came by.

“Oh no you don’t! Back off! This is my kill! Out!”

In the forest, you needed to be aggressive, lest other creatures capitalize on your hard work. The trap-jaw checked to make sure the cricket was gone and returned to the roach.

“Alright now, where were we? Are you dead yet?”

It began to pick up the roach by its limb, but it was still alive. It attempted another mandible blow, which sent the roach springing away.

“Hey, get back here!”

After seizing it with its jaws, the ant delivered a lethal injection from its stinger.

“There, that oughta put you down.”

It dragged the roach home. It delivered a couple more stings along the way, just in case, as it carried it back to the nest. Another cricket was waiting in the dark to steal the dead roach, but the giant trap-jaw was not going to let it. It chased it away and hurried to bring the kill home to its nest, which I discovered here, a small opening in the soil. I love these giant trap-jaw ants so much and wish them well in Pantdora.

These crickets had a prominent presence in the rainforest. They could be seen everywhere, congregating on the stump, laying eggs in the soil, feeding on decaying matter in the leaf litter, and falling prey to a number of creatures like the weaver ants of the rainforest, who were picking them off and carrying them up into the vines where their leaf nests were located.

But I wanted to continue adding to the prey insects and detritivores of our rainforest, so it was time to do that now. First, check out this related beauty, a cool slant-faced grasshopper. We’ve had slant-faced grasshoppers in here in the past, but they were totally hunted to extinction by past sun skink lizards. I was happy to bring them back to Pantdora. Check out that hilarious slanted face!

Next, I’ve been wanting to add these forever! These are a pair of forest roaches, caught from my yard. They’re native to where I live and have been feeding on dog kibble in their holding container. This one, in particular, was extra hungry, and you’ll see why shortly. I’ve been wanting to add these because roaches are extremely important to an ecosystem. This species is not a domestic pest, so they aren’t a problem in human homes, and they help eat decaying matter in the forest. What’s awesome is that the hungry one just gave birth to an ootheca, an egg case attached to her abdomen. From it will hatch a ton more of these roaches and I feel they would bring great value to our ecosystem. Let’s add them in now.

I placed the roaches onto the rainforest floor and they immediately dispersed. One hid under a clump of moss, where it was greeted by a bunch of Pantdoran creatures. The piece of dog kibble was instantly found by the Gnomads, our colony of gnome ants. I eventually spotted the roach up on the asparagus ferns, which was great to see. I hoped we could establish a good colony of these.

A third creature I’ve been wanting to add was this beauty! This was a large red millipede I found also in my yard. It immediately crawled onto the leaf litter onto which I placed it, and began to wander the soils which were full of Gnome ants. But it knew it wasn’t in danger, as these millipedes have strong armor and even a noxious deterrent that makes them distasteful to predators. Check out that color! I loved watching it explore the soils of our forest, where it could smell tasty decaying food all around. It eventually crawled into a darkened hole where it would retire, before emerging at night.

In terms of predators, I spotted Snip, our baby sun skink, born from adult sun skinks who used to frolick Pantdora basking on the stump. He was so cute and was growing very fast. When he reaches full size, he’ll be eating a ton of insects, but for now, he preys on smaller insects like young roaches, young crickets, termites, spiders, and flies. He’s super active and likes to climb, and at times, he’ll keep perfectly still, and I won’t be able to see him. Can you spot him here? He’s right there! Now here’s the thing, I’m unsure if he’s the only baby in here because sometimes I will spot him with his long tail, and I will question whether or not he was the original baby we spotted weeks ago who named Snip due to having a missing tail end. What do you guys think? Is this our Snip or some other baby?

Up against the glass, I spotted another young lizard. It was a juvenile gecko. As I had dreamed, the geckoes had finally gotten a good population going in our rainforest and I am spotting babies and juveniles like this one all around. They are also insectivores and are super cute.

Now the geckoes make suitable prey for these predators. Arachnophobes, look away for a second. Up behind the rock wall a giant beast was getting ready to retire for the day. It was a giant huntsman female, cleaning herself happily. Her abdomen was huge, which meant she either had a huge meal or was about to lay an egg sac. I don’t know if this was our Lady Death Strike, one of the OG female huntsman spiders we placed into the rainforest many months back, or if it was one of her offspring, but it was great to see the huntsman spiders thriving in these lands, as they were essential to a healthy ecosystem to help keep prey insect populations down.

Now, there was one other predator I still couldn’t quite find, i.e. Godzilla, our spectacled caiman. My guess was he had found a suitable hiding spot. I’m sure we would find him soon. Some other creatures that were MIA were a colony of Marauder Ants, which were added a couple weeks back, which I still haven’t seen. I did spot a spider mimic that pretends to be a marauder ant so predators don’t bother it, but not the ants themselves. Also in the same boat, I haven’t seen the mini trap-jaws also added a couple of weeks ago. My guess was they were probably laying low underground somewhere and we would be spotting them emerging above ground more and more soon. Otherwise, the worst-case scenario, is that the ants failed to adapt or compete with other ants in our rainforest. We’d just have to wait and see. Now, I didn’t know it yet, but I was going to find a clue as to their disappearance soon.

But let’s move up the glass bridge now to Orchadia, our rainforest canopy, which has developed a unique set of life of its own. The trees have been a haven for prey insects like crickets and roaches. In fact, Orchadia has been the perfect refugium for these prey insects, seeing as this upper vivarium was the perfect place for them to feed on endless foliage and breed, far away from several key predators that stayed in Pantdora.

But there have been a variety of newcomers that you guys have to meet! Orchadia has become a popular spot for beetles. A pair of calico-colored weevils were hanging out on a moss clump in the branches. I find them to look quite comical. The female began to squirm backward and pooped. Good job! The male had his eye on this female and had been watching her for quite a while. And after a few moments, he finally summoned up the courage to make his move. He approached the female, mounted her, and rotated around searching for her cloaca. And success! The two were breeding now. This was awesome!

Alright, let’s give these two some privacy because they’ll be nee…. Oh, OK. That was quite quick, perhaps a few seconds. He strutted off happily after having the time of his life and fulfilling his life’s purpose. I’ve been spotting these weevils more and more all over the place, even down in Pantdora, so I feel the weevils have now become a long-term fixture in our rainforest, which was awesome to see.

But these weren’t the only weevil species in Orchadia. I was mind-blown when I spotted this gorgeous specimen! A large pink weevil sat in the foliage, looking like a pretty piece of candy. What an incredible beetle species. Again, this pretty one must have been introduced into Orchadia along with one of the plants. Check out those cool toe pads! It also had a cool pattern on its back. Weevils are plant eaters, so I assume it had been munching on the banyan foliage. So cool to find it, and I hoped there were more so they could continue to breed in our canopy.

Another beetle I spotted in Orchadia was this cool beetle. It was a long-horned beetle. This was the first time spotting one in our rainforest. Named after its super long antennae in relation to its body, I suspect this long-horned beetle was introduced here via the wood, perhaps as a larva, as these beetles feed on and burrow into wood. Pretty cool to see it here. It certainly had plenty of wood to feed on and choose from in our forest.

Sadly, I spotted the giant click beetles I added last week, dead in the puddles. This could mean a few things: They could have either died naturally after having mated one night and fell into the water, or they drowned. Either way, the decaying beetles in the water were releasing some serious nitrogen into the water, which the plants were totally loving, particularly our banyan trees, which have exploded in foliage. With a constant source of water to draw moisture and nutrients from, the banyan trees have begun to undergo a growth spurt. Even some of the branches which sit in the nitrogen-filled water, which I thought were dead wood, were actually coming to life, growing new foliage! I wonder what species of tree this is! Pretty cool right?

And then I spotted this formidable creature. Let’s talk about this ant! Last week was a bit of a rollercoaster ride when I first began spotting these mysterious bright red ants in Orchadia’s foliage, which after scientific identification in the lab, turned out to be a non-native species of Tetramorium ant. They were now being spotted more and more foraging the leaves of the banyan trees. Now, it was later clarified by the scientists of the lab, that though this species is currently listed as “invasive” in my country, that status is still actually under some debate, seeing as they are native to countries very nearby geographically speaking, so they may turn out to just be native or simply classified as a non-invasive introduced species, with low ecological impact. Either way, I have resolved to keep my eye on them in our rainforest to make sure they didn’t pose a danger to our ecosystem. Other ants here in Orchadia were of course more weaver ants in the upper foliage, as well as black carpenter ants, whose nest I still haven’t been able to locate. Anyway, I was quite happy with the number of ant species our rainforest so far was sustaining, and peacefully at that… at least, that’s what I thought. A discovery the next day would be the biggest surprise.

Night fell in our rainforest, and I approached the vivarium as I have every night before bed for nine months. It has become somewhat of a nightly ritual for me to come here to our rainforest, and marvel at her ever-growing beauty before retiring for the night. The rainforest was extra misty tonight, and I’ve always felt the mists had a very spiritual quality to them, as they danced upon the foliage of the rainforest, blessing the lands with life-giving hydration. Our new red millipede had emerged to explore its new home for decaying matter. I spotted some newly sprouted grey mushrooms budding up from the soil. Crickets were busy frolicking the ground for edibles. I began to think about how awesome this world we created truly was. I followed one of the many paths of nutrients in my mind, starting up in the vines above, which had leaves that were wilting, and falling off, either into the water where they would decay and offer nutrients to the aquatic life, or onto the forest floor. When on the forest floor, detritivores would eat them, and their poop would become the soil into which the roots of the vines have stretched out, gathering the nutrients it needed, to bring back up to create new vine leaves to start the cycle all over again. There were innumerable cycles of nutrients like this in our rainforest, which to me meant our mission to create a living ecosystem within glass had been a great success.

In the soils, I spotted the Gnomads traveling through an active tunnel. So far these ants were the dominant ant species of Pantdora, having done the best among all other ants. I wondered if they would ever be dethroned by another competing ant species. We’d just have to wait and see.

And as I continued to look around, I then spotted an oh-so-familiar eye. Aha! There he is! Ladies and gentlemen, Godzilla, hiding in the moss staring right at us. He’ll be emerging soon to hunt as it’s his waking hour.

I began to realize how far this rainforest has come in nine months. I also couldn’t believe our rainforest was nine months in age! Time seems to just fly by when you’re having fun, right? I was grateful to have such a calming slice of nature here for us to watch, whenever we needed to escape the noise and uncertainty of the world, or focus our attention on something stable, something real in an increasingly dizzying, digital age. The organicness of our rainforest was always refreshing to me, with its new plants springing up everywhere, new creatures to find, new life showing up at every square inch. It was somehow very comforting to get lost in this dynamic biological world that continues to create more life, a system that grows more beautiful, more abundant, more robust with time.

Staring into Orchadia, too, was nothing short of magical, like beholding the first-born child of Pantdora, its living upward extension of forest space, with which it was exchanging air, water, and life, still young but following in Pantdora’s footsteps to become a unique ecosystem of its own. I couldn’t help but feel moved by the wonder of these slices of rainforest we created, microcosms of the living biomes that make up our planet. Our project over the past nine months has been enlightening beyond anything I could have ever imagined and I went to bed, feeling grateful for the past nine months and excited to see what new discoveries were to come next.

The next morning, I looked into Pantdora and spotted an Asian bullet ant carrying home what looked like a large larva of some kind. Hmmm… I wonder where it found that, and what species of larva it is? And then, my heart dropped when I spotted this. Oh no! A dead young giant trap-jaw ant worker! They were raiding the Giant Trap Jaw Ant nest! A new ant war has begun!

Oh my goodness! So, I found this mysterious egg in my yard behind my chicken coop, but this is no chicken egg. Hello, my precious beast. Rest well. Guys, are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?

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