NEW VIDEO: I Tried to War Two Rhino Beetles But What Happened Shocked Me


The final joust of the Rhino Beetles, we call the Gladiators, has finally come to the Antiverse, but something unexpected has happened. Watch how Mother Nature once again proves that she has final say in the outcome of our plans.

 

Two Rhino Beetles Going to War

Oh man, guys, today, be prepared to be shocked.

I tried facing two Rhino beetles together in a jousting duel to finally film what Rhino beetles allegedly do best:

a beetle war. But AC Family, what ended up happening was something you definitely don’t see in nature documentaries.

For those of you who’ve been following the epic lives of the beloved Rhino beetles on this channel, I’m sad to announce that some of our beetles have died—and I’ll be going into that later.

This is the final chapter of love, death, and us setting up the stage for the ultimate war, and a conclusion that nobody could have ever predicted.

Ladies and gentlemen, have a seat as we set the stage for nature’s sumo wrestlers to fight over breeding rights, food, and territory here on the AntsCanada channel. Welcome to the AC Family!

Nature has a funny way of doing things. She often surprises us with the craziest stuff, and as we’ve seen time and time again here in the Antiverse—our ant room—she’s a master at curveballs. Keep on watching until the end of this video for the crazy plot twist!

Welcome to the Ringo Stadium, a naturalistic plot of land I designed to be the venue of the ultimate battle.

You see, in case you’re just joining us, we, the AC Family, have been eagerly following the lives of a crew of massive Rhino beetles called the Gladiators, which were supposed to be food—sacrificial gifts to my hungry ant colonies for Thanksgiving last year.

My millions of ants in the ant room loved their flesh and waited in ceremony for me to slaughter the beetle larvae meat. But as I was prepping the fattened Rhino beetle grubs for the slaughter, I had a sudden change of heart.

I couldn’t bring myself to close down those blades of death to kill the naked and defenseless beetle larvae on that fateful evening. So, we ended up keeping them and growing them into these mighty beetles.

We gave them each names after deities in Greek mythology, and over a period of months, watched them arrive into the new world as adult Rhino beetles. When the final Rhino beetle arrived, they were dubbed the Gladiators, and the Rhino Beetle Games were born.

The initial video of the Rhino Beetle Games announcement hit the trending tab worldwide, and everyone placed their bets and chose their Gladiator of choice to champion: Ares, Poseidon, Apollo, Hephaestus, Dionysus, Zeus, and Hades.

The Gladiators were given their own badges, and the teams backing them were ferocious—it was the Hunger Games of the beetle world. We watched as the beetles competed against each other in a series of challenges and were eliminated one by one, losers being released back into the wild.

Until four finalists remained. The winner of the games would win unlimited shelter, food, and mating rights with females for the rest of their one or two-month lives.

And finally, here we are, AC Family, at the final round of rounds taking place in the Ringo Stadium to determine who would take the coveted Pyramid of Hera as the winner of the Rhino Beetle Games.

But there’s something I need to share with you that may make some of you sad—or even angry. I am so sorry about what I’m about to show you.

Death. The hollow exoskeleton of Aphrodite, one of the three females, lay in pieces within her Soudan suite. She must have died of old age.

You see, once the beetles emerge from the soil as adult Rhino beetles, this species only lives for two to four months afterward. She may have lived an easy and happy life, but it signaled to me that the Rhino Beetle Games had to be completed ASAP, lest we lose our other beetles to old age too.

And then, AC Family, that’s when I discovered another sad death. Grabbing one of the Soudan suites, I noticed one of the banana pieces was left uneaten. It made me suspicious and scared. Nervously, I dug through the soil in search of the Gladiator that lived inside, and it was then that I found this. It made my heart drop into my stomach.

Have a look: a chunk of organic material full of maggots. AC Family, I’m sad to announce that I believe these are the remains of Dionysus, our oldest Rhino beetle and one of the top four finalists in the games.

I’m sorry, Team Dionysus. I believe I waited too long to finish these games, and our oldest beetle has also passed away from old age. Though he lived a happy life within his Soudan suite, he didn’t get a chance to pass on his genes to the next generation of Rhino beetles.

This only meant that we needed to complete this tournament now more than ever.

And so, AC Family, it brings us to where we stand now: the Ringo Stadium and the last challenge of the Rhino Beetle Games.

The AC Family was given the opportunity to vote off a beetle based on performance in stridulation. Sadly, Hephaestus received the least amount of votes, voting him out of the games and releasing him back into the wild.

With Dionysus now gone and two last Gladiators remaining, we have no choice but to proceed to the final round of the games, an event I’ve been waiting for since the beginning of these games.

The event is called the Joust, where the final two Gladiators will go head-to-head to wrestle each other off a landmark—this stick.

AC Family, prepare for Gladiator war!

To set up the stage for the ultimate war between the final two male Gladiators, there needed to be something done to the venue in preparation for the beetle joust to work.

We needed some beetle love potion sprinkled all over the grounds. And look—here come our love potion wafters now!

There’s movement in the soil. Emerging from the darkness of the soil are the females, who have surfaced to feed for the evening. Beautiful Artemis takes in the crisp night air as Hypoaspis mites skate along her smooth elytra.

What a gorgeous maiden. She races to join Athena, who is already feeding from a ripe piece of banana. These two females were moved in here several days ago, and their fertility pheromones have been released in the vicinity, which will hopefully get our male Gladiators in the mood for love—and to fight.

And so, AC Family, the stage was set. It’s time to watch two ultimate male Gladiators—Rhino beetle beasts—go head-to-head.

The Joust

Behold our two finalists: Hades and Poseidon, who have managed to pass every test and challenge we’ve subjected them to.

Today, they participate in the ultimate challenge and do exactly what nature intended for them to do.

I was super excited for this! Hades, the youngest of the Rhino beetles, though coming close to elimination a few times, has proven that he is a worthy contender to win our prize of unlimited shelter, food, and mating rights.

Team Hades, congratulations on making it this far into the competition!

Poseidon, one of the most rooted-for beetles since the start, has also proven his worth. But have a look at his body—he is just covered with baby mites. He’s also a favorite among the mite community, it seems. Congratulations, Team Poseidon!

This is it, AC Family—the moment of truth. It’s time to finally crown the ultimate winner of these games and see which Gladiator reigns supreme in the world of Rhino beetles.

The rules of the joust are simple: using the horns nature gave them, the objective is to lift, knock, or shove the opponent off the stick.

The loser will not die, but perhaps his ego might. The winner, who remains standing, wins the food, the land, and the lovers.

Here we go, AC Family.

I carefully nudged the Gladiators to move closer to each other. Poseidon immediately began vibrating his body as soon as Hades came within his sight and smell.

And suddenly, the beetles’ horns touched. But then…

There was this stillness.

The Rhino beetles stood completely still—not fighting. There was no battle of the horns, no head-locking, no horn-scraping, and no shoving.

Okay… hmm. I tried to use tweezers to get them to show a little more movement, but no—the beetles chose to keep still and not war.

Interesting.

I’d waited months for this climactic moment, but Hades and Poseidon were simply not willing to fight. Are you guys sure?

I tried a second time to encourage an altercation, but the only interesting thing happening now was perhaps an exchange and micro-migration of Hypoaspis mites between the two Gladiators.

In a final attempt to get them to joust, I even placed one of the females in their fighting space—but that didn’t work either.

For an hour, the beetles remained unmoving, in a sort of huddle.

And that’s when I had to make the ultimate decision to do this.

Here comes the crazy plot twist I was talking about, AC Family—but it’s not what you were thinking.

Since Hades and Poseidon were unwilling to fight, they would, by default, both be crowned winners.

They chose peace—so why not just go with that?

I’m not sure why they chose not to fight. Perhaps the conditions weren’t right. Maybe they weren’t completely relaxed from the transfer to their new surroundings in the Ringo Stadium.

Perhaps it wasn’t the right time of the night, or maybe they needed complete darkness to get into the fighting mood.

I’m not sure. But to be honest, I kind of preferred this ending much more.

They could each have a female to themselves or wrestle on their own terms when they’re ready to compete for the right to breed.

So, Team Hades and Team Poseidon—congratulations to both your Gladiators on winning the Rhino Beetle Games!

But, AC Family, this tie was not the crazy plot twist I was talking about at the start of the video.

Nope. Ready for this, guys? Team Dionysus, I have some really shocking and insane news for you as well.

So, as I was digging through Dionysus’s Soudan suite, I couldn’t find him in the soil. Usually, I locate the beetles by their hisses when my tweezers touch them, and that’s how I know where they are.

As I dug and dug, I heard no hiss. And then I found the maggots.

Well, as I was dumping out the soil to clean his suite… guess who I saw? Masterfully hiding deep inside, not making a single sound: Dionysus was not dead.

He was alive and well!

I suppose he’s going to join our duo of Gladiators too.

And so, instead of having them compete for elimination, I guess they’ll just have to compete on their own—if they want to, and when they want to. No pressure this time.

Congratulations, Team Dionysus. He’s also a winner!

Sorry, guys, if you were waiting for the war of the century. It turns out our Gladiators have chosen peace for now.

The beetles can now live the rest of their lives like ordinary beetles, in their beetle paradise.

They’ll have to work out on their own who gets to breed with the ladies.

This strange but neat conclusion to the Rhino Beetle story and the Rhino Beetle Games got me thinking: what is humanity’s strange and innate fascination with fighting and war?

One could argue that, yes, in nature, war exists and is an integral part of the lives of some animals, like these Rhino beetles.

But this entire thing made me realize that war in the natural world is a bit more complex than most of us expect.

Maybe war in the natural sense is not something that can happen as a result of a certain artificial setup or environment.

It’s something that can’t be made or induced by simple, calculated stimuli.

Natural war, in its purest form, requires certain conditions to occur.

In the end, Nature decides who fights and when, who wins and who loses, who lives and who dies.

And there’s nothing we humans can do to control these events.

And it seems, at this moment, Nature has chosen peace—not war—and once again overrides our human plans to set up and sensationalize one of her most precious processes.

Nature has a funny way of doing things.

And so, ends the Rhino Beetle series.

Outro

AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?

Sorry if you were expecting a different result. But no matter how much I tried, the beetles were unwilling to fight. So, I decided—why not let them live in peace?

Though this is the end of our Rhino Beetle story, there’s still so much more ahead in the Antiverse.

So, be sure to hit that subscribe button and bell icon now so you don’t miss out, and join this growing community of nature lovers following the real-life drama of the inhabitants of the Antiverse.

And don’t forget to hit the like button every single time—including now. It would really help a lot!

Speaking of ants, it’s officially the start of nuptial flight season in the Northern Hemisphere, and a lot of you are catching queen ants now.

In case you didn’t know, we’ve got all the top-of-the-line ant-keeping gear for all levels—from beginner to advanced—as well as a ton of new and exciting products for the ant-keeping community not available anywhere else.

So, head on over to AntsCanada.com and browse our shop.

We ship worldwide and offer full email support if you need us.

We also have ant colonies with queens available in most regions, so go check us out and pick up your ant farm kit and ant gear today!

If you’re new to the channel and want to catch up on all your AntsCanada lore, feel free to binge-watch this complete storyline playlist here, which traces the origins of all the ant colonies of the Ant Room.

So, you can follow their stories and better appreciate how these ant kingdoms came to be—and why we love them so much.

AC Family, I’ve left a hidden cookie for you here if you’d like to watch extended play footage of the Rhino beetles, including what happened when I tried adding an additional huge Rhino beetle of a different subspecies to the mix to get Hades and Poseidon to fight. Go check out those deleted scenes!

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

Last week, we asked: What is the special role of the super majors in an ant colony?

Congratulations to Blossom Fall, who correctly answered: Super majors are used to break down food faster so that it can be taken to the colony and eaten sooner.

Congratulations, Blossom Fall! You’ve just won a free eBook handbook from our shop!

This week’s AC Question of the Week is: What were the Rhino beetles competing for in these Rhino Beetle Games?

Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could also win a free eBook from our shop!

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