12:05 I love how you showed a primarily specialised (for an ant) underground carnivorous ant species getting stomped by a generalist. Interesting thing of note is that some colonies from different species will cohabitate if they don’t compete for resources like lasius flavus and formica fucas
Industrious, clever, and ubiquitous around the habitable globe. I can't say what my favorite ant species is, but the discussion on supercolonies reminded me of an ant I often messed around with and have fond memories of: Formica yessensis, a special species of wood ant. These dark red ants are extremely defensive and often swarm anything that even breathes on their mounds, but their greatest achievement comes from their supercolony up in Hokkaido, comprising an estimated 1 million queens and around 300 times more workers. It's called the Ishikari supercolony, and what makes it interesting is that there was no invasive founder effect; one native colony conquered a large swath of land over time. There are other examples of this effect around the world, but these wood ants are the ones I'm intimately familiar with. Oh yeah, and there's also the ant mimic jumping spider. She's technically not an ant, but she's doing her best.
OMG thank you for explaining the difference between a gaster and and abdomen. I try to read scientific sources on ants often and it can be confusing understanding what they are talking about when the terms are very technical. I understood that "in ants we call the abdomen the gaster" but obviously it's not that simple. This clears so much up for me.
one of my favorite ant facts is that they secrete a certain pheromone when they die, which led to a study in which scientists covered individual living ants with the pheromone to see their reactions. The individual would believe itself to be dead, allowing the others to carry it off to their mass grave. The individual would then lay in the corpse pile, still assuming itself to be dead until the pheromone wore off, at which point they would stand up and go back to work. equal parts amusing and fascinating
One thing I’ve learned about ants, is that “herding” hemipteran insects is actually pretty common behavior amongst the more common species ants. It’s especially common amongst ant species often seen as pests, since those ants are really just attracted to sugar, which is something that we make and consume in abundance. In fact hemipteran herding behavior is considerably more common than fungus farming. The latter behavior is only found in the Americas, and primarily (though not exclusively) in the tropics.
Great video! Very professional that you label each photo with the species pictured. I want to dive a bit more into the identification of ants and how to tell them apart from wasps. On something you mentioned and caught my attention: as far as I know, the only two families with a true 2-segmented petiole are Mymarommatidae (where this is a diagnostic feature) and Formicidae (where it is an element for identifying subfamilies). Since (a) most ants are considerably larger than false fairy wasps, and (b) false fairy wasps always have wings (forewings spoon-shaped, with long marginal hairs; hind wings heavily reduced), it’s safe to assume that a non-microscopic, wingless hymenopteran with a 2-segmented petiole is an ant. As for which subfamily of Formicidae it belongs to, that's another story. Note: Mymarommatidae are very rarely collected. The importance of size: there are plenty of cases in families like Platygastridae, Megaspilidae, and other parasitoid wasps where females are wingless, yet these species rarely exceed 0.8 mm in size, something that challenges the lower end of the size range of ant workers. The smallest ants I know of are usually from the Myrmicinae subfamily, which also has a 2-segmented petiole. Additionally, Ichneumonoidea includes some apterous species that are ant-sized (e.g., _Gelis_ spp. in Ichneumonidae and _Chremylus_ spp. in Braconidae), but they lack elbowed antennae ants have, as you mentioned. Of course, there are gray areas, so as a final remark, it’s worth noting that ants have evolved to rely heavily on their mandibles. Even the tiniest ants will likely have relatively large mandibles and a blocky head, even for their size.
This is great! Thank you for adding this. The mandibles is a really interesting point! I've never heard that mentioned but makes total sense! Will be looking out for this myself 🙌
I wish you expanded on social parasitism (example - some Formica and Lasius species replace the queens in target species hijacking the whole colony-starting process)
@@aleksanderlenartowicz5659 Thanks so much! One series I'd like to start doing is some topic spotlights on different ecologic and entomologic concepts across all taxa - might be a little ways out, but a social parasitism one would be sick. Would give me a chance to dive a bit deeper into some of the specifics in the hymenopteran world. Always appreciate ideas or concepts that people would like to see deep-dived!
If you love leaf cutter ants then you absolutely have to come to the museum of natural history in NYC. The have a live leaf cutter ant farm (Atta Cephalotes) to be exact. Seeing them in the enclosure is always a joy and the fungus gardens are amazing. They also have a live honeypot ant farm too. Also if you’re doing family level content could you do the water striders at some point I’d love to hear you talk about the Halobates. Stay awesome dude, Always P.S. Devastator ants are super cool Dr.Adrian Smith has a video about them on his Antlabs RUclips channel
@@insectspotlightproject well I’m glad I can spread the good word, The insectarium is truly amazing. I’d tell you more but I don’t want to spoil the surprise
Love the content and the channel theme, poor old bugs need some more recognition and respect! Ants are just amazing and all the taxonmy classification is so cool, the paralles to our society is unbelievable, we could learn a couple things too
Some ants also have multiple reproductives who tend to the wellbeing of the brood and do nest chores (certain species of mystrium do it and that genus is full of different reproductive strategies)
You are the best at these types of videos on youtube!!! I love you man. For the past few months I’ve been very interested in learning about arthropods of all kinds. Though the sources available have disappointed me (so many contradictions on google it’s crazy), you remain to be the best source and the most entertaining. If you ever start a patreon or something similar I’ll be first to join! You could offer more resources on there for people to learn taxonomy and the behaviors of these creepy crawlies. Keep doing what you are doing!♥️
Bro thank you so much 😭 Part of the reason I started this channel is because of how frustrating it is to look up ento information sometimes (even chatgpt cant give straight answers lol). I really appreciate the support - def in it for the long term! 🙏
Great video. Ants are a really fascinating group! You could have mentionned Wasmannia auropunctata. It is a little complex to understand to people without much knowledge on genetics, which could make it tricky to incorporate in such a video, but their reproductive system is really special!
@@insectspotlightproject Another thing I thought of that could have been nice: While explaining how to identify an ant or at the very end, put a selection of ant mimicking insects (and spiders) and say that those are not ants.
@@ran.glacialis That's v true - lot of ant mimics out there so would have had plenty to choose from! Might be a good rule of thumb for me to start doing just in general
@@Dry_walls I'd say they get left out of the spotlight so hell yea! Lowkey would love to cover most inverts. Insects will still be the focus of the channel, but inverts as a whole need a lil more love
I am a bit surprised you didn't mention ant inquilines, myrmecophilius arthropods. The order that has the most species that lives like this, is undoubtfully Coleoptera, for example species in the tribe Ctenistini, Pselaphinae, Staphylinidae, and the subfamily Haeteriinae, Histeridae. Many of these species eat dead or sick ants, mites and microspores of fungi, often has an ant-like appearance, and produces an addictive secret from their body that they feed the ants, that makes the ants protect them or just let them live in the colony with them. There are also examples of myrmecophilius species from other orders, like Aranae and other Hymenopterans. Histeridae is my favorite family of insects, by the way.
Ooo yea probably shouldve given them a sentence or two. Will just have to make sure I mention these behaviors in the videos on the families that contain them!
An other interesting thing is probably the Gamergates, so the queenless ants, and btw mi favorit ants are defenitly the Trap Jaw ants, the Odontomachus.
Hello, another way that can be used to identify ants is the Metpleural gland (a small oppening on the side of the thorax) it secrets substances that help maintain the ants health and it's exsclusive to ants. Howerver, to see this trait you're gonna need a stereo/microscope and it's hard to see for an untrained eye even with magnification
Some cool things you missed: Army ants, including their migration patterns, bivoacs, and death circles Ants with gamergates instead of queens The world's largest supercolony of the European wood ant Bulldog ants and similar species with less cooperative, social behavior but smaller colonies and stronger individuals Ants that form rafts, bridges, and other structures out of their bodies, to the point that scientists are coping them to make robots Pheromone communication and how it is used not only for food foraging, but how we can emulate it to solve the traveling salesman problem Ant sound communication and how it is used Myrmecophiles, of literally all types Ants that have killed people Ants being used in rituals, for food, and for medicine Ant mimics Different sizes and roles of workers Ants having two stomachs I think that's everything I can think of? There's probably more, but that's what I can come up with off the top of my head for a part 2, if you were to make one. Also, if you continue to do a lot of family spotlights, I would love info on more obscure, small, or recently discovered families and not just big ones. Covering every family of insects is obviously a huge task, but I would love to hear about families less talked about, like toad bugs, bat flies, or tumbling flower beetles.
Kind of the reverse actually! Formica just means ant in Latin (It was a common enough insect they already had a name for it) hence the name formicidae. Formic acid is named because of its association with ants
My favorite ant is Ooceraea biroi, which has no distinct queen and worker castes at all. It's just colonies made of identical parthenogenetic individuals that all pop out larvae asexually. Anyhow, vespidae is the best hymenopteran family. (Also, why do you say "insects and spiders" rather than "insects and arachnids"?)
Queenless ants! Love it. Full-transparency, I say insects and spiders just because it rolls off the tongue better 😂 also vespidae was a major contender when thinking of what family to cover, but ultimately decided ants would be a good one to kick things off
Ants🥰
12:05 I love how you showed a primarily specialised (for an ant) underground carnivorous ant species getting stomped by a generalist. Interesting thing of note is that some colonies from different species will cohabitate if they don’t compete for resources like lasius flavus and formica fucas
@@victory8928 oh wild! Makes sense, awesome that species can over time figure out who’s competition and who isnt
You could say some plants have their own ant-i-bodies. ;)
This comment is a banger, I fear
Industrious, clever, and ubiquitous around the habitable globe. I can't say what my favorite ant species is, but the discussion on supercolonies reminded me of an ant I often messed around with and have fond memories of: Formica yessensis, a special species of wood ant. These dark red ants are extremely defensive and often swarm anything that even breathes on their mounds, but their greatest achievement comes from their supercolony up in Hokkaido, comprising an estimated 1 million queens and around 300 times more workers. It's called the Ishikari supercolony, and what makes it interesting is that there was no invasive founder effect; one native colony conquered a large swath of land over time. There are other examples of this effect around the world, but these wood ants are the ones I'm intimately familiar with.
Oh yeah, and there's also the ant mimic jumping spider. She's technically not an ant, but she's doing her best.
1 million queens is absolutely absurd 😭 Ants once again being weirder than fiction
What aspects of the behavior of Formica yessensis do you find most intriguing?
Slaver ants that is fascinating
OMG thank you for explaining the difference between a gaster and and abdomen. I try to read scientific sources on ants often and it can be confusing understanding what they are talking about when the terms are very technical. I understood that "in ants we call the abdomen the gaster" but obviously it's not that simple. This clears so much up for me.
Ayy thank so much! Glad this could be of help. Yea reliable entomology sources can be very jargony so I hear ya on this 😂
one of my favorite ant facts is that they secrete a certain pheromone when they die, which led to a study in which scientists covered individual living ants with the pheromone to see their reactions. The individual would believe itself to be dead, allowing the others to carry it off to their mass grave. The individual would then lay in the corpse pile, still assuming itself to be dead until the pheromone wore off, at which point they would stand up and go back to work. equal parts amusing and fascinating
Just calmly accepting its fate 😂
This is interesting fr. I wonder how might this behavior affect their ability to respond to threats or resource management?
One thing I’ve learned about ants, is that “herding” hemipteran insects is actually pretty common behavior amongst the more common species ants. It’s especially common amongst ant species often seen as pests, since those ants are really just attracted to sugar, which is something that we make and consume in abundance. In fact hemipteran herding behavior is considerably more common than fungus farming. The latter behavior is only found in the Americas, and primarily (though not exclusively) in the tropics.
Makes sense! I feel like I see aphid herds with ants more often than not nowadays!
I like so much your Channel, It is so interesting, greetings from Mexico Colleague
Greetings! Thank you so much for your support! 🙌
Great video! Very professional that you label each photo with the species pictured. I want to dive a bit more into the identification of ants and how to tell them apart from wasps.
On something you mentioned and caught my attention: as far as I know, the only two families with a true 2-segmented petiole are Mymarommatidae (where this is a diagnostic feature) and Formicidae (where it is an element for identifying subfamilies). Since (a) most ants are considerably larger than false fairy wasps, and (b) false fairy wasps always have wings (forewings spoon-shaped, with long marginal hairs; hind wings heavily reduced), it’s safe to assume that a non-microscopic, wingless hymenopteran with a 2-segmented petiole is an ant. As for which subfamily of Formicidae it belongs to, that's another story. Note: Mymarommatidae are very rarely collected.
The importance of size: there are plenty of cases in families like Platygastridae, Megaspilidae, and other parasitoid wasps where females are wingless, yet these species rarely exceed 0.8 mm in size, something that challenges the lower end of the size range of ant workers. The smallest ants I know of are usually from the Myrmicinae subfamily, which also has a 2-segmented petiole.
Additionally, Ichneumonoidea includes some apterous species that are ant-sized (e.g., _Gelis_ spp. in Ichneumonidae and _Chremylus_ spp. in Braconidae), but they lack elbowed antennae ants have, as you mentioned.
Of course, there are gray areas, so as a final remark, it’s worth noting that ants have evolved to rely heavily on their mandibles. Even the tiniest ants will likely have relatively large mandibles and a blocky head, even for their size.
This is great! Thank you for adding this. The mandibles is a really interesting point! I've never heard that mentioned but makes total sense! Will be looking out for this myself 🙌
I keep ants. I love ants. This is a pretty nice video for the uninitiated. Good work!
I wish you expanded on social parasitism (example - some Formica and Lasius species replace the queens in target species hijacking the whole colony-starting process)
@@aleksanderlenartowicz5659 Thanks so much! One series I'd like to start doing is some topic spotlights on different ecologic and entomologic concepts across all taxa - might be a little ways out, but a social parasitism one would be sick. Would give me a chance to dive a bit deeper into some of the specifics in the hymenopteran world. Always appreciate ideas or concepts that people would like to see deep-dived!
If you love leaf cutter ants then you absolutely have to come to the museum of natural history in NYC. The have a live leaf cutter ant farm (Atta Cephalotes) to be exact. Seeing them in the enclosure is always a joy and the fungus gardens are amazing. They also have a live honeypot ant farm too. Also if you’re doing family level content could you do the water striders at some point I’d love to hear you talk about the Halobates. Stay awesome dude, Always
P.S. Devastator ants are super cool Dr.Adrian Smith has a video about them on his Antlabs RUclips channel
Oo def gotta check this out - my brother used to live in NYC don't know how I had never heard of this 😭
@@insectspotlightproject well I’m glad I can spread the good word, The insectarium is truly amazing. I’d tell you more but I don’t want to spoil the surprise
Love the content and the channel theme, poor old bugs need some more recognition and respect! Ants are just amazing and all the taxonmy classification is so cool, the paralles to our society is unbelievable, we could learn a couple things too
Couldnt have said it better myself! Thank you for the support 🙌
Some ants also have multiple reproductives who tend to the wellbeing of the brood and do nest chores (certain species of mystrium do it and that genus is full of different reproductive strategies)
@@victory8928 Truth! Im v looking forward to diving into some more specific ant groups, so much to unpack there
Love your video, i have to mention male drones of the genus diacamma have antennas super similar to wasp though
Thanks so much! But oof yea no elbow in sight on the Diacamma 😭 Theres always gotta be some genus that messes up the ID guides 😂
You are the best at these types of videos on youtube!!! I love you man. For the past few months I’ve been very interested in learning about arthropods of all kinds. Though the sources available have disappointed me (so many contradictions on google it’s crazy), you remain to be the best source and the most entertaining. If you ever start a patreon or something similar I’ll be first to join! You could offer more resources on there for people to learn taxonomy and the behaviors of these creepy crawlies. Keep doing what you are doing!♥️
Bro thank you so much 😭 Part of the reason I started this channel is because of how frustrating it is to look up ento information sometimes (even chatgpt cant give straight answers lol). I really appreciate the support - def in it for the long term! 🙏
Wormmon is back
I think I honestly just forgot to put him up last time 😂
The expression Antelligence has not left my brain since watching the movie Dream Scenario. Anytime I see an ant I think Antelligence.
Its quite fitting 😂
Awesome video dude. I’m an ant keeper myself.
Oh sick! What species you keeping rn?
@ camponotus Pennsylvanicus, Aphaenogaster Fulva, lasius neoniger, and lasius americanus.
@@jakethejapan1029 Sweet! Would love to give ant keeping a try in the future - may hit you up for recommendations 🙌
Great video. Ants are a really fascinating group!
You could have mentionned Wasmannia auropunctata. It is a little complex to understand to people without much knowledge on genetics, which could make it tricky to incorporate in such a video, but their reproductive system is really special!
Just went and read up on this one - incredible! Would love to cover these in a short sometime.
@@insectspotlightproject Another thing I thought of that could have been nice: While explaining how to identify an ant or at the very end, put a selection of ant mimicking insects (and spiders) and say that those are not ants.
@@ran.glacialis That's v true - lot of ant mimics out there so would have had plenty to choose from! Might be a good rule of thumb for me to start doing just in general
Huzzah for formicidae! No love for semi-claustrals though, like Australia's beloved myrmecia.
Haha ah you're right! Guess I could've put a little aside in there. I'll have to touch on them another time!
new series dropped.... lets f*cking gooo
Yessir!! Gonna be doin em in tandem, still got a few insect orders and ton of non-insect groups to cover!
@@insectspotlightproject will.... tings like annelids be covered....
@@Dry_walls I'd say they get left out of the spotlight so hell yea! Lowkey would love to cover most inverts. Insects will still be the focus of the channel, but inverts as a whole need a lil more love
@@insectspotlightproject i fuckin agree bro... go for it
The super speedy Monty Python reference lmao Im locked in
Lol Im glad someone picked up on it! 🙏
I am a bit surprised you didn't mention ant inquilines, myrmecophilius arthropods. The order that has the most species that lives like this, is undoubtfully Coleoptera, for example species in the tribe Ctenistini, Pselaphinae, Staphylinidae, and the subfamily Haeteriinae, Histeridae. Many of these species eat dead or sick ants, mites and microspores of fungi, often has an ant-like appearance, and produces an addictive secret from their body that they feed the ants, that makes the ants protect them or just let them live in the colony with them. There are also examples of myrmecophilius species from other orders, like Aranae and other Hymenopterans. Histeridae is my favorite family of insects, by the way.
Ooo yea probably shouldve given them a sentence or two. Will just have to make sure I mention these behaviors in the videos on the families that contain them!
i rejoiced
I rejoice to hear your rejoicing coldhazzard - thank you for all the support! 😄
Have you done a video on the Order Blattodea
Yup! I have a playlist on my channel of all the insect orders - only around 4 to go!
An other interesting thing is probably the Gamergates, so the queenless ants, and btw mi favorit ants are defenitly the Trap Jaw ants, the Odontomachus.
Some of those gamergates look so sick too, and would love to see some wild trap-jaws 🙌
Hello, another way that can be used to identify ants is the Metpleural gland (a small oppening on the side of the thorax) it secrets substances that help maintain the ants health and it's exsclusive to ants. Howerver, to see this trait you're gonna need a stereo/microscope and it's hard to see for an untrained eye even with magnification
Still a great tool! Thank you for the addition 🙌
Some cool things you missed:
Army ants, including their migration patterns, bivoacs, and death circles
Ants with gamergates instead of queens
The world's largest supercolony of the European wood ant
Bulldog ants and similar species with less cooperative, social behavior but smaller colonies and stronger individuals
Ants that form rafts, bridges, and other structures out of their bodies, to the point that scientists are coping them to make robots
Pheromone communication and how it is used not only for food foraging, but how we can emulate it to solve the traveling salesman problem
Ant sound communication and how it is used
Myrmecophiles, of literally all types
Ants that have killed people
Ants being used in rituals, for food, and for medicine
Ant mimics
Different sizes and roles of workers
Ants having two stomachs
I think that's everything I can think of? There's probably more, but that's what I can come up with off the top of my head for a part 2, if you were to make one.
Also, if you continue to do a lot of family spotlights, I would love info on more obscure, small, or recently discovered families and not just big ones. Covering every family of insects is obviously a huge task, but I would love to hear about families less talked about, like toad bugs, bat flies, or tumbling flower beetles.
Ants are terrifying.
Are they called formicidae because of formic acid I would assume?
Kind of the reverse actually! Formica just means ant in Latin (It was a common enough insect they already had a name for it) hence the name formicidae. Formic acid is named because of its association with ants
@@insectspotlightproject Woah cool to know
My favorite ant is Ooceraea biroi, which has no distinct queen and worker castes at all. It's just colonies made of identical parthenogenetic individuals that all pop out larvae asexually. Anyhow, vespidae is the best hymenopteran family.
(Also, why do you say "insects and spiders" rather than "insects and arachnids"?)
Queenless ants! Love it. Full-transparency, I say insects and spiders just because it rolls off the tongue better 😂 also vespidae was a major contender when thinking of what family to cover, but ultimately decided ants would be a good one to kick things off
I hate fire ants so much as they are extremely aggressive and love to make colonies in flower pots they make gardening in Florida very difficult.
Had my first serious run in with em doing fieldwork in GA - didnt even realize I was standing in a nest. They really are no joke 😭
@@insectspotlightproject You can be like 20 feet from a nest and if there is any around they'll get you, they are just that aggressive. :)
Kisses from tiny friends
You thought our people are the only animals that's separated from nature? They commit slavery and sometimes use technology yall!