Greetings Ant Lovers,

Wait for the big surprise ending! I finally got to the bottom of the secret identity and life of a mystery ant, tentatively named Ant # 555 from my yard. It was a species I hadn’t seen before, and to our surprise, a taxonomist and myrmecologist Dr. General suspected that this ant we discovered in my yard was actually a new ant discovery. We just weren’t sure if it was a new ant species we had discovered, or if the ant was just a new geographic sighting of Meranoplus bicolor, an already known species. This video finally makes the announcement as to what Dr. General found out about this Mystery Ant # 555. I also make a grand revelation by the end of the video. Hope you enjoy this week’s episode!

What Scientists Discovered About Mystery Ant # 555 | The Big Surprise Ending

Mark my words, AC Family, if this ant that we filmed last week turns out to be Meranoplus bicolor, aside from the epicness of putting it on the global scientific ant map, I declare that one of these days, we will stumble upon a brand new ant species.

This, I promise you, and I will continue to send any cool, suspect ant specimens we find in Antopia to Dr. General and his team, so we could hopefully one day name a species of ant Acfamilius, after all of us, AC Family!

But meanwhile, now that the samples were being examined by the taxonomic pros, it was time for us to have a closer look at our mystery ants here.

I had so many questions, like what were they like? What did they eat? Were they friendly or aggressive? Outgoing or shy? And how could we find a queen so we could try keeping these ants we made ant history with?

I went back to the nest and went in with my lens.

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Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!

I have to be honest, guys—there’s one very big detail that I left out in last week’s episode about these newly discovered ants that we’re going to take a closer look at today, which I’ve waited until this week to reveal to you for a very special reason.

Sorry for all the vague talk, guys, but trust me, I’ll explain everything coming up. But first, I do have some amazing news!

My ant biologist friend, Dr. General, and his team have examined the specimens at their lab of the ant we’ve tentatively named Ant #555, which we discovered two weeks ago in my yard.

I’m pleased to announce that they have determined whether our Ant #555 is a brand-new ant species previously undocumented by science, or if it is Meranoplus bicolor, of which we, the AC Family, just happened to be the first to discover exists in my country.

Now, regardless of the result, both outcomes were exciting. But I think you guys will be thrilled by the end of this video, as there’s a crazy plot twist that may get you shouting in excitement, just as I was—along with members of your AC Senate, who already know the big news!

I’m also going to need your participation and input on something major, so stay tuned for that too!

Now, let’s get to it.

Waiting for word from Dr. General was truly a mission for me!

I think I checked my email and mobile every five minutes, every single day, for a message from him relaying the big news I was hoping for.

Eventually, I realized I needed to relax and pass the time in a more constructive and less manic manner, so I decided to visit the nest of our Ant #555—the one I managed to locate in our last episode—to observe what these mystery ants were like.

If it turned out we actually discovered a new species of ant, I wanted us to also be the first to discover what they were like.

Welcome, everyone, to Antopia, the yard on which we are building our future Ant House.

Yes, kinda like a Bat Cave, but more like an Ant Cave, I guess, which will house our various current and future pet ant colonies, arachnids, amphibians, and reptiles on this channel.

You can follow the entire Ant House and Antopia storyline from the start here, after watching this video.

I truly can’t wait for us to move in here, so be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the channel to be part of this new ant chapter.

Not too far from the Ant House, within a small patch of soil and grass, lay the home base of Ant #555.

Check out how awesome these ants are!

It took me a long time to actually locate the exact spot of the nest of Ant #555, because, for one thing, these ants are pretty small.

They weren’t like weaver ants, which are large and bright orange in color.

They were very well camouflaged, and you wouldn’t think a black and red ant with long hairs and spikes would camouflage well.

But examining the habitat of these ants, you could appreciate how the recurring color and texture palette of blacks, reds, and hairs from the grass and ground made these ants perfect ant chameleons in this domain.

Now, in our previous episodes, we already saw how unbelievably beautiful these ants are, with their contrasting black heads and gasters, red thorax decked out with crazy battle spines, adorable beady eyes, and long fuzzy hairs.

But that was a single ant on its own.

I was truly surprised to discover, however, that our Ant #555 was even more beautiful when seen as a group!

When I first spotted their nest, I approached it with caution.

I didn’t want to scare them or disturb whatever it was they were doing.

I had no idea if they were shy, aggressive, if they stung like fire ants, or what.

But the first thing I did notice was just how visually gratifying they were—seen working as a colony right at their inconspicuous ant hills.

They were just magical to watch.

I don’t know if it was their body shape and look, or the way they seemed to glide in a cute way over the surface of the ground, or if it was their steadfast industrious and productive attitude that made them so satisfying to watch.

But something about these ants was just intriguing, and I found myself watching them for hours as they diligently carried grains of earth from within their burrow to dump onto the outer walls of their ant hill.

Have you seen such an adorable ant, AC Family?

It made me excited to think about the possibility that we discovered them!

During my ant-watching session, I noticed a few things.

First, Ant #555 was not aggressive to me anyway.

In fact, if they sensed I was near—for instance, when I touched a nearby leaf or something—they would suddenly freeze in position and act unalive.

Hehe!

It was pretty adorable, actually, and a great opportunity to film them!

Now, just because they didn’t seem aggressive and enjoyed playing dead as a tactic for survival, I learned that it didn’t mean these ants were pansies!

I was shocked to see the ants had killed a fire ant and were bringing it home to eat!

As we all know on this channel, fire ants are as aggressive as they get, so it was good to know that Ant #555 was savage when it needed to be!

Also, very assuring to see them killing fire ants because fire ants are invasive.

Go Team Natives!

In terms of diet, other than fire ants, I noticed the ants loved to eat sweets, like this sweet jelly I gave them, as well as small insects they managed to catch—like this small green critter that this ant is carrying.

They also seemed to hang out around plant insects, like these scale insects you see here.

So, perhaps the ants were also tending them as ‘ant cows,’ drinking the sweet honeydew they excrete as a byproduct—which, as you may know, as seen in previous episodes, many ant species like to do.

Now, here’s a hilarious scene that I managed to film:

Watch as these two ants mobilize to carry a fellow worker ant somewhere.

I’ve seen this happen in nearly every ant species I’ve kept in captivity.

I’m not actually sure why ants do this, but I suspect that these ants that literally get picked up and carried around are either lost, young, confused, or possibly defiant and don’t want to follow what their fellow ants are trying to get them to do.

So, what happens is these older ants come along and literally pick up these young ants and carry them to where they need to be.

I’ve even seen this happen with workers carrying their queens in times of danger when she’s not willing to run to safety with them.

It’s almost like young puppies or kittens—where, by grabbing an ant by the neck, there’s this sort of “off” button, which causes the ant to curl up into a fetal position, making them easier to transport.

I’m certain all of you fellow ant keepers out there have seen this behavior with your ants and know exactly what I’m talking about.

Speaking of which, of course, keeping a colony of these ants was definitely on my mind.

But digging these girls up from the ground was not something I was willing to risk doing.

There was a high chance I’d injure the queen while excavating, and for all I know, this colony could be huge, and its nest could be totally deep into the ground.

Or perhaps this was just a satellite nest, and their mother nest was somewhere else.

In my mind, the best way to keep a colony of Ant #555 was to wait for their nuptial flight, whenever that would be.

By the way, AC Family, speaking of nuptial flights, for many of you in North America and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, winter will be coming to a close now.

Which means the first round of nuptial flights of the year is just around the corner!

And I know you ant keepers are celebrating as your ants are waking up from hibernation now.

So, if ant keeping is something you’re looking into trying out or doing this year, I highly recommend you pick up any of our pro AC Gear Packs and starter kits at AntsCanada.com, which have everything you need to get started in ant keeping.

I’d love for you guys to keep pet ants with me—and in the same setups!

But whatever the case, I told myself I’d keep an eye open every time I’d visit the Ant House, for a mated queen wandering on the ground so I could start an ant colony of Ant #555 from scratch.

But little did I know, the name Ant #555 was about to be no more.

OMG!

It was Dr. General.

“Good morning, AntsCanada,” he wrote.

“I am officially confirming my previous determination.

It is indeed Meranoplus bicolor.

Congrats on your exciting find.

You have added species #555 to the country’s species list.”

So, according to the ant pros, it turns out these ants were in fact Meranoplus bicolor, and we didn’t discover a new species.

They were first discovered way back in 1844, but we were the first to discover they existed in my country, which was still awesome and exciting!

But then I had a follow-up question because some of you brought up the prospect of this possibly being a subspecies of Meranoplus bicolor—which would also mean that maybe we discovered a new subspecies?

“Hi Dr. General,

Wow!

This is very exciting!” I wrote back.

“I will surely announce this in this week’s episode.

Our subscribers have been super eager to hear back on the species confirmation, and they will love this news!

Thank you.

However, I do have a follow-up question:

What are the chances that this is a Meranoplus bicolor subspecies?”

His reply was quite interesting.

“The chance is very slim because subspecies designation is discouraged among ant taxonomists.

The unofficial rule for the revision or study of a genus is that subspecies names must be either ‘sunk’—meaning given the same species name as an already existing species—or ‘raised’ to species status, meaning given an entirely different and new species name.”

So basically, he said the ant taxonomic community tries as much as possible to not create ant subspecies names.

Instead, they just either lump it in with an already known species or call it something entirely new as a new species.

He went on to mention that, as a result, there have been very few subspecies described in the past 50 or so years in myrmecology.

So, I guess our mystery ants here are no longer a mystery.

It has been confirmed that they are Meranoplus bicolor—the newest ant to be documented in my country.

Yay!

Still a cause for celebration that we made this ant discovery.

And as we saw in last week’s episode, the odds of us finding a brand-new, undiscovered ant species if we continue to keep looking are pretty good!

Let’s cross our fingers, guys, and hope we do find a new species—and that we do find a newly mated queen Meranoplus bicolor so we can keep a colony of them!

I have to research and find out when Meranoplus bicolor have their nuptial flights in other countries they exist in, so I know when to possibly look for one in my country.

Isn’t it amazing that info on this ant where I live is pretty much non-existent?

I definitely feel a special attachment to these ants because of the fact that we put them at a new location on the global map.

How about you?

Our geographical record will eventually be showing up on AntWiki and AntWeb.org, and I’ll be putting links to those in the description box when they’re ready.

But now, speaking of us having a special attachment to this ant, I mentioned at the start of this video that I am going to need your help, AC Family.

I feel these ants deserve an official name on this channel.

In our last episode, you guys voted on a name for the Marauder Ant population of Antopia, and due to popular vote, the official Marauder Ant population of Antopia will from now on forever be the Spartans.

I love that name, AC Council!

Thank you to all who voted last week.

But this time, I think our Meranoplus bicolor ants deserve a name too.

It needs to be a good one because of how special they are to us.

So now, I ask:

What should we name this wild colony and population of Meranoplus bicolor?

Leave your name suggestions in the comments, and I will choose my Top 5 favorites for all of us to VOTE on as a community in a future video.

Alright, so also at the start of this video, I mentioned there was a key detail about these Meranoplus bicolor ants that I had to leave out—and that there would be a huge plot twist that would get you shouting.

Well, that detail is this…

The ant nest of the Meranoplus bicolor ants here was not actually found in my yard but just next door in the neighboring yard.

Now, this neighboring yard was vacant, and upon exploring its more forested areas, I was surprised to discover that it actually had some really unique habitats and microclimates that were different from our current Ant House yard of Antopia.

Furthermore, to my surprise, I also noticed a ton of different ant species living there that I didn’t recognize.

It was almost like a new sister dimension of Antopia, waiting with its own set of secrets and ants for us to discover.

Now, it’s a big rule of thumb that ant keepers shouldn’t be anting on private property.

In fact, biologists usually need to acquire permits when studying or collecting ants on private and even public property.

Such laws also apply to ant keepers like us.

And though nobody owned this very lush land full of trees, plants, and strange ants, it still didn’t feel right for me to be on that vast vacant lot filming the Meranoplus bicolor nest, collecting a newly mated queen if I ever found one there, or wandering the property in search of new ant species.

But getting a permit seemed like such a hassle, so I stopped to think for a moment, and the craziest thing occurred to me.

AC Family, I think you’ll love what I have to say next.

After checking the subscriber count this week, I realized that our next episode needed to be big and ultimately celebratory because we would be hitting our big 4 million subscribers milestone any day now—if we haven’t already, by the time you all are watching this video.

Our 4M Subs episode needed to top all our past subscriber milestone videos because you guys are currently the biggest and best ant-loving community you’ve ever been, and I felt you guys deserved something truly big.

And so, AC Family, after thinking about it for a long while, and the prospect of us possibly finding a brand new ant species somewhere in that lush, ant-filled forest of the new lot taunting my imagination, a totally crazy idea came to me that I think you guys would truly love.

This next major event on the channel was going to be epic and truly kick this ongoing tale of Antopia up a notch.

AC Family, can you read my mind?

Do you know what’s coming up next?

Did I not say there would be a plot twist?

You won’t want to miss this absolutely Mr. Beast-level crazy idea I have ahead.

So if you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for?

Be a part of all this ant fun and SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload.

Also, don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time—including now!

It would really mean a lot to me, guys.

Thank you!

AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here if you would like to watch random scenes of our Meranoplus bicolor ants at their nest and going about their business, as well as a clue to my grand ant idea coming up in the next episode.

Go check it out and try to keep my secret under wraps until next week!

And guys, be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your ant-keeping and collecting gear, shipped to you in a special package from our ant-loving facility in the USA, so you can get the most out of your ant-keeping experience.

We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!

We also have a helpful forum and an ant colony trading marketplace on the site.

Visit AntsCanada.com today!

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

Last week, we asked:

“What would you name our mystery ant if it turns out to be an undiscovered species?”

There was no correct answer to this, but I did choose at random.

So, congratulations to Jarrett Munro, who answered:

“Antucus Canucus Jarretticus”

Congratulations, Jarrett! You just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!

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

“Why was it assuring to see that the mystery ants were eating fire ants?”

Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could also win a free Ultimate Ant Keeping 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, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help us keep making more.

It’s ant love forever!