Dear AC Family,
I’m sorry but today was a sad day. It had to be done! It’s over now.
Why I Released My Pet Ants Back Into the Wild – Very Sad Day
Ah, guys.
We have some problems!
The title may be alarming to you, but if you’re new to the channel or haven’t been caught up on recent events, my pet ants have been infected with mites, and our attempts to get rid of them have failed.
Now, many of you have suggested I release them back into the wild. I’ve been trying to come to an ultimate decision, and today I have finally made my choice.
In this episode, I go over all the facts—biological, ethical, and statistical—and explain why I decided to do what I ultimately did. So, AC Family, do keep on watching until the end!
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So, let’s start with how we got here, for those of you who need a recap.
We recently acquired a colony of pharaoh ants, and today they have mites—a lot of them—covering their bodies and even the queens.
By the way, guys, if you’re excited about today’s video, I would really appreciate it if you could give it a thumbs up and let me know.
Alright, so this pharaoh ant colony was named the Tomb Raiders by you, the AC Family, by way of a vote.
The funny thing about this colony was they were actually enemies of ours because we found them literally raiding our Garden of Eden, one of the terrariums that house our Titans, our Asian marauder ant colony.
So we trapped them—well, as many of them as we could anyway—and turned the traps into mini terrariums for them, all connected by tubing.
We couldn’t put them in a proper ant farm because the ants are small enough to fit through the microholes of our Hybrid Nests and Omni Nests. No worries, though, as their setup was huge and spanned my entire room!
They went from wild enemy ants to our new captive friends. A strange mold began to appear in their setup, but we easily gained control of that.
But then, last month, we spotted a scary-looking colony of mites all over the bodies of our Tomb Raiders. I knew this was very bad news.
So, over Christmas, we tried to expose the colony to sliced lemons, which, in the ant-keeping hobby, seems to be ant keepers’ first go-to solution for mites. It seemed to have worked a little bit but not really. The mites were still visible on the queens.
As soon as I saw the mites, I contacted Dr. Kaitlin Campbell from the Biology Department of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
Dr. Kaitlin happens to be an acarologist, a mite biologist. She was also the same biologist whom we consulted for help last year when our Golden Empire, our yellow crazy ant colony, had mites.
Upon inspection of the Tomb Raiders’ mite video, Dr. Kaitlin immediately determined that: “I’m confident they are Astigmata and probably Acaridae and therefore unlikely to be parasitic but are phoretic.”
Phew! That was good news and also explains why the colony wasn’t wiped out by now.
For those of you who may be new to the world of mites or the word “phoretic,” it basically means that these mites belong to the group called “Astigmata,” which are fungivores, bacterivores, and scavengers, and were not bloodsuckers of other insects.
This actually meant that these mites were, in fact, ant friends, as their biological role normally was to break down the ants’ garbage.
But at this point in time, the mites were phoretic, which meant that they were merely “body latchers,” just hitchhiking and not sucking the ants’ blood.
Dr. Kaitlin explained to us last year that for these Astigmatid mites, phoresis—this act of attaching themselves to the bodies of other insects—is just a stage in the mites’ life cycle, called the Deutonymph stage, brought about by specific conditions, which we will go into a bit later.
The mites in this Deutonymph stage don’t even have mouthparts to feed or anuses to expel waste. They literally just live to attach themselves to the bodies of other insects.
She said that though phoretic mites don’t physically endanger the ants directly, if the mite population grows out of control, the ants’ brood could be in danger.
OK, so what caused these mites to enter this Deutonymph stage in the first place and attach themselves to our ants?
Apparently, when living conditions are not ideal for either the mites or the ants—usually when it’s too wet or too dry, if there is an abundance or lack of food, or if the overall health of the ants is compromised somehow, like if they’re diseased—then Deutonymph mites show up on your ants.
So, basically, that meant something about our ants’ setup, or the ants themselves, was wrong or off. But it could have been a whole slew of possible things!
So now, AC Family, let’s recap what we did back when the Golden Empire, our yellow crazy ants, were infected with these same phoretic mites at exactly the same time last year.
First, we attempted lemon therapy, which kinda worked a bit, but not really. We found the same results with our Tomb Raiders last week.
Second, because unideal conditions were one of the possible causes for the mites to have become phoretic, we decided to move our infected Golden Empire into this huge terrarium, which was full of plants, soil, and critters.
We hoped this new lush environment would cause the mites to proceed to their next life stage and detach themselves from our ants.
Third, because compromised health of the ant colony was also one of the possible factors of mite phoresis, we attempted to improve the Golden Empire’s overall health by adding to their numbers.
Last year, we fused a new healthy colony with our infected colony in hopes that the resulting improved health from greater numbers would help cause the mites to fall off.
In the end, it was this combination of three therapies that eventually caused the Deutonymphs to proceed to their next life stage and fall off the bodies of our Golden Empire.
So, the answer was simple, right? All we had to do was give the Tomb Raiders this same therapy as the Golden Empire to cure them, right?
But actually, I fear our Tomb Raiders’ situation is a bit more of a complicated one.
First, the lemons—fine. That was easy to do.
But next, moving the Tomb Raiders into their own terrarium caused some concerns. My only fear is that the Tomb Raiders would be next to impossible to contain while properly being able to house the plants and critters of the said terrarium.
The only way I’ve been able to maintain and upkeep the Hacienda Del Dorado, the terrarium of our Golden Empire, is because I can get into it anytime I want, easily trim and water the plants, and all that ventilation ensures we don’t have crazy mold outbreaks or stagnant air.
If I tried to give our Tomb Raiders something similar to the Hacienda Del Dorado, they would surely escape, especially because they also can cross baby powder.
Sure, we could attempt a perfectly sealed ecosystem, like a sealed terrarium, but the ants would need to eat at some point.
And for those of you thinking, “Just add organisms to proliferate in there on their own and seal the entire tank—that would be it!”
Well, based on over 25 years of keeping terrariums, I can confidently say that this is not an easy venture and a project I was not willing to take on.
About adding to the pharaoh ants’ numbers, I am still continuing to catch stray pharaoh ants that wander my room, but about that…
Man, it seems there are now a lot of pharaoh ants gathering in my room, especially around the pharaoh ants’ setup!
I feel our Tomb Raiders are releasing some pheromone that is attracting their old colony into my room—maybe a distress pheromone or even a buildup of a nesting pheromone that is beckoning their free-roaming sisters to the ant room!
I am seeing pharaoh ants everywhere!
This is problematic because even in the Garden of Eden, all I see when I put out food—which is supposed to feed our Titans—are pharaoh ants feeding on the food.
As has been so typical of our Titans, the original inhabitants of the Garden of Eden, our beloved marauder ants have disappeared now for weeks.
I don’t even know if they are still alive!
All I see now when I peek into the Garden of Eden are wild black crazy ants who, as you know from past videos, have also taken over these territories, scavenging what looks like a ghost land.
Lots of you have suggested to just release the Tomb Raiders already.
After all, they clearly were not adapting well to captivity nor the setup I designed for them, and it has caused them to be infected with mites.
So, I launched a poll on our new YouTube community tab to ask if we should just release the Tomb Raiders or if we should not give up hope and keep trying mite therapy.
Based on over 30,000 votes, 53% of you were for releasing the Tomb Raiders, 25% were for keeping them, and 22% of you were on the fence.
So, the majority said release!
But here’s the next thing: where to release the colony?
Though they were captured locally (literally in my ant room, which is as local as it gets), they also are an invasive species. So, I don’t want to release them near a nest of a native Philippine species of ant, in fear of them invading it.
But, thinking of the well-being of the ants themselves, I do feel that releasing the Tomb Raiders somewhere outside where they have all the proper resources they need would certainly get rid of their body mites and hopefully these straggler pharaoh ants that are invading my room more and more.
So now you all understand my plight.
I thought long and hard over several weeks about what the best course of action would be, and AC Family, last night, I finally came to an ultimate decision.
It was the best decision, considering all factors and your input.
And so, AC Family, I decided to…
…set the Tomb Raiders free at a garbage dump…
…because it’s ant love forever.
AC Family, it was certainly sad to say goodbye to our Tomb Raiders, but I trust we did the right thing.
Thank you to all who gave their very valid input to a very tough decision.
Truth is, you guys astound me week after week with your thoughts and advice.
It’s like a collective mass intelligence that I am able to tap into every time I visit the comments section of these videos. So, please be sure to continue leaving your comments regarding your thoughts.
I read them every day and take each of them to heart. There is no comment or idea that I dismiss as stupid or silly.
It’s like ant intelligence, and we each are like members of a colony, solving life’s problems as it throws them at us!
Now, speaking of life and what it throws at us, before proceeding to the hidden video and AC Question of the Week, in case you didn’t see last week’s video, I wanted to quickly plug my new daily vlogging channel for those who might be curious as to what I work on in between these weekly ant videos.
You can find my new daily vlogging channel by clicking here. But just a warning, guys, if you do wander over to that channel… well… mmm… let’s just say, it’s different. Haha!
Many AC Family have already subscribed, so thank you guys who have. I upload short life vlogs there every single day, which means a lot of nature stuff, too, from my travels around the world!
Alright, AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here if you would just like to watch footage of the actual release of our Tomb Raiders last night.
And now, it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What does the Golden Empire seem to like doing to their emptied-out honey test tubes?
Congratulations to Miann Oblea, who correctly answered:
They leave the dead ants in the test tube.
Congratulations, Miann! You just won a free eBook handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What is the name of the life stage where Astigmatid mites attach themselves to the bodies of insects?
Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could also win a free eBook handbook from our shop!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8 AM EST.
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It’s ant love forever!