Ants on a leaf

NEW VIDEO: What Caused an Extinction Event in My Giant Rainforest Vivarium


Something caused an extinction event in my Giant Rainforest Vivarium, my biological project for the study of wild ecosystems. It was sad to say goodbye to two very key animal species in my vivaria that were mysteriously wiped out from the tanks in a matter of weeks. The cause of the disappearances was not known, but after researching the state of the ecosystem and its biological relationships further, the rainforest provided me with the clues I needed to piece the puzzle together. Hope you enjoy this Season 3 Finale of my Ecosystem Vivarium Series. Ant love forever!

 

What Caused an Extinction Event in My Giant Rainforest Vivarium

This is Pantdora, my 1,000-gallon cloud rainforest vivarium, which is attached to a tree vivarium on the floor above called Orchadia. It’s a biological project of mine whose aim is to study the dynamics of a rainforest ecosystem within glass, home to a plethora of exotic plants, fungi, and creatures.

Our rainforest Pantdora hits its 1-year birthday this week, and during the course of a year, I have watched the rainforest evolve and remain resilient as it overcame some serious ecological obstacles.

But guys, I regret to announce that there have been two highly mysterious extinctions in our rainforest: one in Pantdora and another in Orchadia, which I’ll get more into in a sec.

Now, extinctions happen in nature, so the mass extinction event in our rainforest was definitely worth studying. And so began the unraveling of a huge mystery as to what truly caused the mass extinction of two very key species in our rainforest, and a journey into the truth of how ecosystems really work in the world.

Welcome to the Season 3 Finale of my Ecosystem Vivarium Series, and the 1-year anniversary episode of our cloud rainforest within glass, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel.

Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel and hit the BELL ICON. Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!

There are moments in this project when a creature we’ve been following in the forest suddenly dies or disappears. It’s strange because when this happens, my first instinct is to grieve and pay tribute to the deceased creature. But the thing is, you can’t exactly get closure when you don’t know what caused their death, leaving you with a ton of questions.

I experienced this feeling again when accepting that Snip, a baby sun skink born in our rainforest, had been missing for the past month or so. It either fell prey to Godzilla, the baby caiman, or adult huntsmen wandering the forest, or simply died from some other cause like illness and had just decayed somewhere I couldn’t see.

Her brother, Snap, was still alive and quite large now. But as mentioned, this disappearance of Snip marked the discovery of the extinction of two key species that used to be highly abundant in the forest but were suddenly nowhere to be seen, and I had to get to the bottom of what caused the extinctions.

So, which key species had gone extinct?

First, the weaver ants, a species of ant that lives in the leaves of trees and shrubs, were introduced in Orchadia but later moved to Pantdora and dominated the rainforest. Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen their numbers start to dwindle, and now I don’t see them anywhere—not in the vines, not on the glass, not in Pantdora, nor Orchadia.

The other mass extinction was a species that was new and very promising, which completely dominated the Orchadian treetops: the Dolichoderus ants. Within a couple of weeks, they completely vanished!

But I knew that in order to find out what had completely wiped out these two ant species, which were key to the ecosystem, I had to investigate and better understand all the current biological relationships within the rainforest—particularly the “geopolitics,” if you will, of the world in which these extinct species existed.

Both the weaver ants and the Dolichoderus ants had either been outcompeted to death, slaughtered by some other species in the rainforest, or had died due to some other unforeseen event, and I was determined to get to the bottom of the extinctions.

I didn’t know it yet, but what I would end up finding was truly eye-opening.

I shone my flashlight at a darkened corner of the canopy. It was the site of a serious war between ant species over a blob.

A team of Crematogaster ants, called the Crematoblasters, was defending their blob of sweet stuff from enemy ants—invasive black crazy ants known as the Dark Horde.

“Back off! This is our blob,” the Crematoblasters threatened, with gasters in the air, spraying formic acid at the black crazy ants, who didn’t flinch.

All while this was happening, another team of invasive ants was taking quick slurps of the blob, discreetly hiding in the moss and darting around where other ants weren’t looking. They were the ghost ants.

A couple of weeks back, I discovered that crickets in Orchadia had found a liking for the vines, and the chewed-up parts were the site of much precious food.

Vine resin was oozing out of the chewed-up parts, offering valuable nutrients to various life forms. When mold didn’t get to this highly nutrient-dense resin first, ants were next to claim the goods.

A dwarf ant was the first to discover this blob here. Some of the vine resin oozed onto the forest floor, where a clan of golden carpenter ants had successfully claimed the resin blob as theirs.

No other ants were seen around, probably due to the golden carpenter ants’ highly potent formic acid sprays.

I knew a better understanding of the ant geopolitical landscape, as well as all the other players in our rainforest’s food chain, would help give me clues as to how our weaver ants and the Dolichoderus ants went extinct.

And so, I began my search where these extinct ants lived… in the leaves.

Orchadia, the canopy vivarium, was my place to start snooping and make my way down.

Mornings in Orchadia were always quite peaceful, with the sunbeams streaming into the canopy after a night of darkness, bringing energy to the leaves of the trees, which were covered in morning dew from the hydrating mists filtering through the tree branches.

In the foliage, I spotted a new friend. Anitu, Queen of Trees, was resting in the foliage in her bed of banyan leaves. After an entire night of feeding on the banyan foliage, she was asleep and happily digesting.

Looking at her now, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. She had little baby hairs all over her body. Known scientifically as setae, these baby hairs captured the humidifying droplets of water in the air, and the dew covered her entire body like little jewels adorning her solid green exoskeleton.

Anitu is a newcomer to our rainforest, but I felt she would do quite well in these trees, as she didn’t have any predators.

One old-timer that has proven to stand the test of time and survival in our rainforest treetops was this beauty. I’ve named her Candy. She’s a gorgeous pink weevil, who came into our rainforest with the plants.

Stunning color aside, the texture of her exoskeleton was quite intriguing, kind of like some pink soft stucco or fabric. Despite her being the perfect prey size for many predators in our rainforest, she has managed to survive and thrive.

I loved seeing her cool resting position, with her front legs bent and folded like a camel, as she snoozed in the drier upper leaves.

But speaking of the leaves, one possibility regarding the abrupt disappearance of the Dolichoderus ants—who nest in natural nooks and crevices created by leaves and wood in the trees they inhabit—was that the ants couldn’t find a satisfactory place in which to properly establish a nest in Orchadia.

But, on the other hand, the canopy was full of a ton of unoccupied crevices to choose from, so that couldn’t be it.

And then I spotted our first possible clue. It was a Dolichoderus ant suspended in the air, dead on a web.

There were a ton of web-building spiders everywhere in Orchadia. I began to consider if the webs, built by spiders at virtually every free space between branches, posed a hazard to the ants—enough to cause them to completely die out—not to mention the various nomadic spiders like young huntsmen who were hiding in ambush at various places.

These treetops must not be the safest place for certain ants to thrive freely.

But I soon discovered that there was one ant that seemed to evade all dangers and had become the new alpha species of the trees.

They held their black butts in the air, sprinting around the treetops. The Crematoblasters, who seemed to appear out of nowhere after a several-month absence from the rainforest, were back again, with a vengeance.

They were now omnipresent in the trees and were, in fact, the most visible of all the ants in the treetops.

Could it be possible that they’ve just completely wiped out the Dolichoderus ants, seeing as the Crematoblasters also nest in wood crevices? They seemed to be daring enough to push back against other ant species that were after the same resources they were.

This, to me, sounded like a more likely guess.

It was then that I was suddenly distracted by tiny movements in the branches.

A pair of thorns were wobbling on a twig, and my eyes widened when I realized what they were. AC Family, these were not thorns. They were insects.

Introducing bagworms! Those thorns are actually homes built by a caterpillar using debris from the environment as material. It’s a protective casing held together by silk, creating excellent camouflage for itself.

In this species, the caterpillar’s home is shaped like a unicorn horn, and underneath the horn is a little caterpillar doing handstands to inch its way around.

In the past, we’ve found a larger bagworm in Pantdora whose home was more pancake-shaped. These bagworms were just babies, meaning they were probably recently born here, from eggs laid by their moth parents onto one of the trees before I moved them into Orchadia.

The protective disguises were totally working, as the Crematoblasters zoomed right past them, not realizing the wobbly thorns were potential protein opportunities.

Amazing how nature had given some creatures the most ingenious ways to evade predation.

But to my surprise, seeing the Crematoblasters dominating the treetops, and possibly the reason our Dolichoderus ants had vanished, was only the beginning, for I soon discovered that the Crematoblasters’ empirical tactics of dominion had actually extended down into the lowlands of Pantdora, as well, where the weaver ants had also disappeared.

Now I knew that to get to the bottom of the extinctions, I needed to literally start looking from the bottom of the food chain, that is, the detritivores.

To be completely honest, the true alphas of our entire rainforest—the most successful creatures of Pantdora and Orchadia—were, in fact, the smallest ones.

I sometimes forget that the detritivores—a bountiful team of little soil creatures that I often miss due to them being so tiny—ensure the health of the soils, which in turn sustain the rest of the ecosystem.

A tiny mite moved along a decaying piece of wood. Mites like this fellow are actually arachnids and are super vital to ecosystems.

Anywhere there is decaying material—whether it be decaying vines, decaying mystery egg pieces, or leaf litter—these mites head Mother Nature’s cleanup crew.

They also are super thorough and don’t just wander at soil level but will climb high up the vines and into the trees in search of decaying material to feed on.

And they’re not alone in their great work!

Springtails, these little flighty insects, are just as important as the mites at breaking down organic material throughout the forest.

Joined by isopods, snails, and other tiny minuscule critters my cameras are unable to see, the team of rainforest soil creatures carry the entire ecosystem on their backs.

The decaying material they consume gets digested and pooped out, creating excellent fertilizer for plants. And needless to say, the plants are absolutely thriving in Pantdora.

Check out the pothos, which has transitioned into its giant form, now as big as my hand! The fungal life also seems quite healthy at soil level.

So, judging from the active soil biota and plants, it looks like the ecosystem from the bottom looks great. Time to move up—way up.

Something wiped out the vine leaf-dwelling weaver ants, so the answers could be up here in the vines.

Aha! Suspect #1: Asian Bullet Ants.

Pantdora’s Asian Bullet Ants, the largest ants in our rainforest, were seen wandering the upper vines of Pantdora. It looked to me like they were climbing the vines in search of honeydew, the sweet secretions produced by mealybugs, which are the top carbohydrate source for ants.

I could see the ants licking the surface of the leaves for honeydew splatter. The Asian Bullet Ants were quite thorough, too. They also swept through the ferns, frequently visited herds of mealybugs along the stems and leaves of the pothos, and scoped the dead vines, the wood, and basically foraged at all levels of the vivarium.

Could the Asian Bullet Ants have killed off the weavers over time?

I watched as an Asian Bullet Ant found a mealybug on some driftwood and instantly began to pick at it, like some barnacle. It tugged and pulled and eventually picked the mealybug off to bring back to the nest inside the stump, probably to eat.

It was undeniable that these Asian Bullet Ants had a taste for meat, as well.

If they were responsible for the extinction of the weavers, it was either due to outcompeting them for the honeydew—meaning they were better at collecting the limited supply of honeydew from the mealybugs than the weavers—causing the weavers to suffer and decline in numbers, or they flat-out raided their leaf nests and killed them off over time.

I was suddenly distracted when I spotted this flying insect. When I recognized what it was, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

This wasp-like creature was not a wasp but an ant. It was a male ant.

For those of you new to the ant world, this is what male ants look like—evolutionary evidence of the common ancestor ants share with wasps.

Against the glass, it had such a cute face. Hi there, Sir!

I actually noticed several of these males around the forest. It was their breeding season, and these males were Asian Bullet Ant males.

They are seeking other Asian Bullet Ant nests to break into and mate with the Gamergate—the alpha worker who acts like the colony’s queen.

You see, Asian Bullet Ants are unique in that they don’t have a main egg-laying queen like most ants. Instead, they have a dominant worker ant who is the only one allowed to mate with the males and therefore produce eggs.

I need to add a second unrelated colony of Asian Bullet Ants into our rainforest at some point so males like these could find what they’re looking for.

For now, however, they’ll be great food for spiders.

But the fact that the Asian Bullet Ants are doing so well that they’re in breeding mode tells me that they have been getting in their protein, making them a high suspect in the weaver ant murder case.

But there were also other suspects I had my eye on.

The gnome ants, we’ve named the Gnomads, which are usually only seen at ground level, were also seen foraging up in the vines, likely for the collection of the mealybug sweets, as well.

They too were competing with any ants up here.

But I quickly noticed the most energetic ant competitors in the vines were the new kids on the block. The Crematoblasters had also extended their foraging territory down here in Pantdora.

With butts raised in the air, ready to spray formic acid at any moment, the Crematoblasters were prepared to claim dominion over these vines.

Every leaf was scoured for honeydew and licked clean. Some even had food comas!

Others were standing protectively around mealybugs and stroking them until they gave up honeydew droplets, which they gobbled up joyfully!

You know, throughout observing the ways of this rainforest, I never realized through all my years of ant keeping just how valuable plant insects are to ant nutrition.

Every species of ant in the rainforest seems to love this honeydew produced by the mealybugs and other plant insects.

I always thought honeydew was just some specialty food only a few ant species enjoyed, but now I realize honeydew is essentially the manna of the ant nutritional world. They can’t live without it.

It made me also realize, as an ant hobbyist, that perhaps this is why some ant species do not do well in captivity—simply because we can’t readily provide this source of critical ant food.

It’s not like we can bottle this honeydew up and place it into our ant farms, nor can we substitute it for honey, sugar water, hummingbird nectar, or maple syrup, which are us ant keepers’ usual go-to sources for sugary ant food.

It seems ants can only collect this highly nutrient-dense fluid fresh from the butts of plant insects.

It just goes to show you how deeply integrated ants are with other species and the ecosystems they are part of.

As I began to ponder if it was possible that the Crematoblasters were the ones to wipe out or outcompete the weavers and the Dolichoderus ants, I noticed a very active trail leading down a broken vine.

I followed the trail of Crematoblasters onto the stump. As I watched it climb down the wood, I made a crazy discovery.

Aha! So this was where they were nesting. They had moved into the Hallelujah Tree Stump, but alarmingly, it was into one of the termite tunnels of the termites that lived inside the stump.

I could see guards manning the entrance.

It worried me a bit that the Crematoblasters might have wiped out our termite colony, but this wasn’t the first time ants had moved into the termite tunnels, as we saw it once with the Dark Horde.

I assumed the termites had their ways of blocking off tunnels in case of emergency because the termites continued to be spotted around the stump afterward.

I bet the termites in the stump had cut off these Crematoblaster-occupied tunnels as well.

It was crazy to see the Crematoblasters hollowing out debris from the inside of the termite tunnel and dumping it outside.

I swear, these Crematoblasters are just insane at this survival game in our rainforest!

I’ve always seen this stump as one huge condo building, as it houses a massive amount of life.

Other than the Crematoblasters and the wood-dwelling termites, the Asian Bullet Ants also live inside this stump.

As we saw in the last episode, a supercolony of ghost ants now lives in the stump as well, and this is a huge concern because these ants are some of the world’s top invasive species.

They typically have thousands of egg-laying queens per colony, don’t need a nuptial flight to reproduce, and are tiny—an advantage in the ant world when it comes to ant warfare.

In fact, now I suspect the ghost ants could also be the cause of the mysterious weaver and/or Dolichoderus ant extinction.

Anyway, the OG dwarf ants also live in this stump.

Spiny ants also live in the stump.

Golden Carpenter Ants, also stump residents.

That’s seven different species of eusocial insects co-inhabiting a giant piece of wooden real estate. Talk about biodensity!

As I continued searching for answers regarding the ant extinctions, I had no idea I was about to make a very mind-blowing discovery regarding another formerly thought-to-be extinct ant that had returned from extinction!

I caught sight of a mealybug wandering through the leaf litter. It had something stuck to its foot.

If only this little mealybug knew just how valuable a species it was in the rainforest for the survival of so many creatures.

Along came a giant trap-jaw ant, on the hunt for meat.

These menacing-looking ants have both a stinger and these crazy bear trap-like jaws that snap shut with record-breaking speed and force, down upon any prey creature it can capture.

I held my breath as the mealybug wandered along the leaf edge, completely evading the trap-jaw’s radar as it looked beneath the leaf.

If only this mealybug knew just how lucky it was to get away.

Now these giant trap-jaw ants were introduced into Pantdora in our 6 Million Subs episode and have since done quite well for themselves.

There were, however, also other trap-jaw ants—a smaller black species of trap-jaw—that were introduced at a different section of the rainforest and have since been nowhere to be found.

After months of their disappearance, I concluded that the colony of little trap-jaw ants had sadly died, perhaps failing to adapt to the rainforest environment or falling victim to other ants or predators.

That was until I spotted this girl making its way down the tree trunk.

No way! Guys, this was a little trap-jaw ant!

They were alive, and still in the same area I had initially released them!

This was truly amazing to discover!

After four months of wondering what had happened to the little trap-jaws, spotting this little trap-jaw here was as good as spotting a dodo bird.

It warmed my heart to know that they were still alive somewhere in our rainforest.

Just above it, a gecko was looking on. The geckoes of the rainforest had no interest in ants, so I didn’t quite suspect them to be responsible for the extinction of the weavers and Dolichoderus ants.

It’s always cool to see them sticking so well against vertical surfaces.

In case you were wondering how they do this, the secret is in their sticky toe pads, known as adhesive lamellae, which are lined with millions of tiny hook-like cells that grab onto the most minuscule ridges on even the smoothest of surfaces.

A weevil came hovering nearby.

He was also in quite the predicament.

He needed to climb glass but lacked adhesive lamellae.

Nature hadn’t chosen his species to evolve adhesive lamellae, favoring another type of adaptive feet based on the environment he evolved to live in.

Despite his hardship, this was one determined weevil, and he attempted to climb the glass again.

He, of course, failed and ended up on the floor, forced to find another route that didn’t involve glass.

The gecko went on with his business and ate something tasty in the shadows, as the rainforest was on its way to making the transition to its night form.

Night fell in our rainforest, and I spent the beginning part of the evening hanging out up in the trees, where I would continue my investigation into the ant extinctions.

Hanging out here in Orchadia was always an interesting experience, kind of like hanging out in a treehouse high up within a rainforest canopy, where I could look out the window at the leaves and clouds that blew through the foliage.

It’s always so peaceful and relaxing.

I noticed Anitu was already busy munching on vegetation.

Crickets had emerged to begin their nightly activities, and hunting them were animals already seen jumping through the branches.

Kermit, one of the several tree frogs, was on the lookout for tonight’s meal.

With excellent eyesight and pupils dilated to gather in as much light as possible, he scanned the foliage for prey insects.

“Hmmm… nothing interesting over here. Let’s check over there!”

The tree frogs have been OG residents of our rainforest since the beginning, and I am happy they have been thriving.

They now remain in Orchadia full-time and enjoy soaking in any of the numerous pools of water for extra moisture.

They haven’t bred yet, but their breeding season should be coming soon.

Perhaps they’re waiting for a larger body of water that isn’t occupied by a croc.

I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised very soon. I’ve got something planned for them in the very near future.

But the trees were now dominated once again by the Crematoblasters.

Man, were these ants running a monopoly in the trees!

Their highways trailing through the branches were a marvel to witness.

I was certain they also were nesting somewhere up here in the treetops.

They had to have wiped out the Dolichoderus ants! Wouldn’t you guys say?

I climbed down the trees to hang out on the rainforest floor.

Once again, I was captivated by the rainforest’s mystical beauty at night.

A herd of mealybugs was resting on the pothos.

A giant trap-jaw ant was exploring the ferns, also looking for the best mealybug sites, where it could collect honeydew.

It found a spot and went in to lick.

I noticed an Asian Bullet Ant climbing the vine roots to ascend into the vine leaves to continue their honeydew collections.

The geckoes were out now in full effect, hunting.

I spotted a swarm of Crematoblasters feasting on some gecko poop.

It was always incredible to me to see creatures finding sustenance in waste products of another animal.

In this case, the ants were likely finding certain proteins, fats, and minerals excreted into the stools of the geckoes.

I even saw the ants salvaging undigested insect parts from the poop.

This is also testament to the importance and multiple jobs that ants play in the ecosystem.

They’re predators, and they’re detritivores, just like soil creatures, acting as a cleanup crew.

I spotted a crab hiding under some rocks by the pond.

These crabs have done quite well for themselves, as well, since they were introduced.

I’ve come to learn that just like ants, they were predators and detritivores.

A crab on the rock shelf caught my eye, and as it retreated deeper into the rocks, it led me to the largest animal in our rainforest.

Godzilla, our resident juvenile caiman, was swimming through the water.

He had the perfect tail for swimming, too, with its paddle-like shape.

I then discovered something truly gruesome.

Looking into the waters, I noticed that a bit of algae was growing in a small area, and the aquatic snails were happily grazing on it.

After all the years of having fish tanks, I’ve learned that a little bit of algae is nothing to fear and completely natural.

It actually amazed me that after a year of no water changes and a simple submerged filter that received zero cleaning, the waters have managed to remain fairly clean and sustain plenty of aquatic life despite a crocodilian living in it and pooping in the water.

I will have to restock this pond with fish once Godzilla moves out of here soon.

He’s truly grown up in the perfect environment, free of predation, which is something caimans like him have to contend with in the wild.

But as I watched the snails grazing on algae, I shivered when I saw it.

There! Ugh! A worm!

And soon, I discovered that the pond was simply teeming with them!

Ew, I hate worms!

It looked to me like they had a fatter head section. Were these parasitic worms?

Any worm experts care to chime in with some insight?

There goes me ever sticking my hands into these waters again!

Well, it comes to show you that there’s always something new to discover in our ever-changing rainforest.

But guys, we’ve seen a lot now, and still, I wasn’t quite sure what had led to the extinctions.

I felt this might be another mystery disappearance case with no closure.

But little did I know, I would soon stumble upon the saddest sight that would officially conclude my search for the mystery extinctions of the weavers and Dolichoderus ants.

The next morning, my heart dropped when I spotted this up in the vines.

Hey, weaver ants. A small group of weaver ants was huddled on the underside of a vine leaf.

No leaf nest to protect them, no brood to protect, just workers without a purpose, in zero motion.

I felt so sad when I realized these were the last remaining weaver ants of our rainforest and were destined to die now.

It’s crazy that a once-thriving colony with multiple queens had been reduced to this small, helpless group.

The fact that they didn’t have a leaf nest, to me, meant they had long run out of larvae to supply them silk needed to build leaf nests, which meant their queens had been dead for a while now.

This, at least, meant that the Crematoblasters weren’t responsible for the death of the weavers.

But then, who was?

A movement of orange and black caught my eye in the asparagus ferns.

It was then that the truth had been revealed.

An Asian Bullet Ant was carrying a dead weaver ant back to the nest.

The Asian Bullet Ants had been preying on the weavers all this time—the mystery of the weaver ant extinction, solved.

As for the Dolichoderus ants, after everything I’ve seen, I concluded that they were either wiped out by the Crematoblasters—seeing as they were the force to reckon with up in the trees—or there was simply a failure to adapt to the new environment in Orchadia.

It was sad to see these two ants lose the survival game, but you know what? This was simply how things work in the natural world.

It’s survival of the fittest, as they say.

I can try to introduce the two ant species back into our rainforest again, perhaps in the future.

Various species have come and gone within our rainforest, and over the past year caring for the rainforest and watching its species profile change and develop over time, I have come to learn that when something disappears, sometimes they make a return—sometimes weeks later, sometimes months.

The land planaria, these predatory parasitic worms, for instance, which used to be rampant in Pantdora, are now strangely nowhere to be seen.

The marauder ants added four months ago, whom I’ve only seen sporadically here and there, I know are somewhere hidden below ground.

I often wonder what happened to the random toad we spotted hopping around one time and the tarantula we once added.

These disappeared creatures could just be good at hiding and may one day make an epic return.

I also spotted in the leaves a tiny grasshopper, slowly creeping past a dwarf ant milking a mealybug.

This was quite the surprise, as green grasshoppers haven’t been seen in Pantdora for months, but it seems the ones that disappeared made sure to procreate and lay eggs before doing so.

I was surprised to discover that the Crematoblasters had actually also set up another nesting site inside a dead asparagus fern stalk.

Just ingenious!

It was again a reminder that only the organisms that are the best at adapting and utilizing available resources in their environment end up thriving in a process of natural selection, ensuring only species that survive the tough parameters of the rainforest earn the right to pass on the torch of life into the future.

Mother Nature does not show sympathy for the weakest links in her ecological chain of life, but it is all for a greater purpose, and no life goes in vain.

It re-enters the system to bring forth more life.

Though Snip had sadly disappeared from Pantdora, Snap was very much so healthy, growing, and quick on his feet.

He eats a lot, and I knew he would be huge in no time, as long as he keeps away from the pond.

But with his sister gone, it means more food for him and a great chance at survival.

But regardless of what animals end up passing away or disappearing from our rainforest, one thing always remains: the rainforest, as a superorganism—that is, as one living entity composed of its multitudinous parts—continues to live on.

Life, by design, is dynamic and resilient, and with the weaver and Dolichoderus ants now gone, other creatures can move in and fill the available niches, new species can push forth in the new spaces, and the circle of life will still reign supreme, giving proof that our rainforest ecosystem, even after an entire year of existence, is strong and healthy.

You know, when I first embarked on this vivarium project one year ago, my goal was to create an ecosystem—a microcosm of the natural world—that could sustain itself largely on its own, to help me gain insight into the secret lives of ants and other creatures, together with all of you watching.

Looking back on the journey through 45 epic episodes and three of the craziest seasons of this Ecosystem Vivarium Series, I am in disbelief at how much we’ve achieved just that, AC Family.

Because of your love, 11 of those episodes hit the trending tab on YouTube—a resounding sign that the world still cares about nature and about why we should care about it.

As a lover of wildlife, this gives me great hope for our future on the planet, making all the hours of work putting these weekly episodes together over the past year completely worth it.

There’s one thing I truly believe, and it’s this:

As long as we humans continue to love and remain curious enough about other living things with which we share the largest vivarium in the world—i.e., Planet Earth—to protect it, then life on the planet, as a superorganism, will always simply find a way to never go extinct.

But, AC Family, I felt our rainforest was ready for its next major installment.

It was time to allow our rainforest to have an increase in biological space so the ecosystem could grow more fruitful, more biodiverse, and more robust.

And AC Family, after months of planning, I’ve finally decided on the biome for our next and third giant vivarium, and I can’t wait for you guys to see and hear my plans.

Vote in my Community Tab to affect this story!

Guys, thank you so much for watching!

Just wanted to remind you that everything at our shop at antscanada.com is now at 15% off until Jan 1st.

Shop now and start the ant-keeping hobby with your very own AC Ant Farm Starter Kit!

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