Ant appreciation.

I was cruising some old threads and came across a thread made by clos3tgrow3r.

http://forum.grasscity.com/science-nature/687650-ant-slavery-lake-tahoe.html

Made me want to make an ant appreciation thread... I love ants. I don't know why, but I've always been fascinated by them. I wanted to start off sharing some stories about them from growing up. I'll probably come back everyone and awhile and post some interesting videos and facts. Feel free to add anything.

Growing up, I lived on 16 acres. A few acres were a grassy, open field. Filled with shrubs, ferns, grass... The rest was a thick wooded area. Well in the grass fields, the red ants made their claim. They had HUGE ant hills, and I do mean huge. Their oldest and biggest hill was a good 6 feet tall and 10 feet wide.

The black ants made their stake in the woods. Inside dead trees, under rocks and boulders. They hated the red ants. I don't know how they worked out the details, but they both setup a full scale ant war.

I was out kicking holes in the ant hills, collecting red ants for my colony in my room. Yes, I know, I was a weird kid. Anyway, I was a marching line of red ants. It was about a foot wide and marching out of their main hill. I followed it. It went out of the grass field, through my yard, and I got to the front of it. We had a stone driveway and they were going to it. Well in the driveway, I saw a dark trail. It was the black ants marching right for them. A full out army. They seemed to have setup chemical trails to a neutral spot to duke it out.

I sat there for hours, watching this ant battle. It was fucking incredible. Endless ants marching to each other to fight. After like 4 or 5 hours, they just stopped. Both lines stopped coming and turned around, went back home. Left thousands of dead ants all over my driveway. It was an ant war, but I still don't know what the fuck the point was. It's not like they were fighting over land. Not like they were trying to take over their "bases". It was a spot that both had no use of and they just tore each other up.

I'll never forget it, but I don't think I'll ever understand it. Kind of reminds me of people. Proof that fighting and wars sometimes really have no reason. While I don't really condone racism, it opened my eyes to it in a way. That it'll always just be there, like instinct with some people.

So yeah, that's my ant war story. The next is how I think I fucked things up... I had a black ant colony and red any colony going in my room. Each was in a 20 gallon fish tank. I'd take some out of one and throw them in the other and watch them fight. I never caught a queen, but the ants were making eggs. The only thing I could think of is one somehow adapted a queen role? I didn't really want to destroy the colony just to find out what was going on.

I got the bright idea to experiment and throw some red ant eggs in with the black ants. I'd wait for them to transport the eggs from hole to hole and I would snatch them up quick. I assumed the black ants would destroy the eggs as they're probably covered in red ant scent. They didn't. They took them in. At first it was like in the video, they used the red ants as slaves.

After so long though, there started to be a new ant. It was bigger than both red and black ants and was literally half red (upper half) and half black (lower half). The mid section on some of them looked like a sharp line with half red, half black. It was pretty crazy.

But they were aggressive. They eventually killed off any ant that wasn't mixed. I soon had a mutt colony. Even though I kept the glass oiled, I walked into my room to find a bunch of these half breeds on my floor. I thought "oh shit, I can't let these guys get out into the wild". I think some did...

I don't know if it was my doing or if nature did it (meaning the wooded black ants took eggs outside and introduced them into their colonies in the wild without my help) but after a year, the only ants I could find in my woods were these mutt ants. I am pretty sure it happened naturally, but I can't help to blame myself.

And that's my ant breeding story... Only other thing I'd like to share at the moment is lemon ants. I don't know what their scientific name is. They are tiny, like those tiny black ants you see on your kitchen counter, only bright yellow. My mom is a schizophrenic and she told me once (the only time I've ever see the "lemon" ants) to pour boiling water on them and it'll release a strong lemon scent. Seeing as my mom is crazy, I didn't believe her but tried for shits and giggles. Sure enough, you get hit with a blast of lemon scent.

I find it crazy that plants and animals can share such common factors (being color AND scent) but it kind of relates to a plant/animal theory that I have. I'll get into that some other time if I feel like it.

So yeah, I love ants. I would be a hulking warrior ant in the afterlife if given the chance. You would see me on the Discovery Channel though because I'd be the only ant to learn how to use splinters as spears.

 

Here is a cool video of ants making a boat out of themselves when a flood hits.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A042J0IDQK4]YouTube - Ants create a lifeboat in the Amazon jungle - BBC wildlife[/ame]

I can't stand this dude's voice, but this is an antlion. These guys would make their traps in the find dirt around my place and I'd feed them some ants every once and awhile. One thing I noticed about them form personal experience, they are really picky. If they know the ant is too big, they'll stay hidden and just remake their trap once the ant leaves.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWkfAyfBDHE]YouTube - Antlion Death Trap[/ame]

 

Lol, you can't feel bad about ants killing a lizard. Just imagine how many it ate during it's life. Just the cycle.

My grandma loved the black ants in her garden. I think it was her rose bushes, they would set up shop in them and protect em. I love that Cordyceps video even if it does show the demise of some ants. Cordyceps facinate me too, but that's a whole other topic to get into, lol.

Here are some cool ant facts. I got a kick out of #8. And I found a lil info on those "lemon" ants. They're called citronella ants. If I ever start another ant colony, I think it'll be them.

I almost forgot about these ants that made a home in our cement porch. They managed to burrow through the cement and had a colony under our porch. You would never see them except for 1 day of the year. It was usually around the summer solstice, they would come out. There would be some guards ants just hanging out and protecting. Then thousands of soon-to-be queen ants would come out and fly away. You would never see them foraging for food, so I imagine they had some aphid cattle, lol.

Someday I'll type that all out once I get it all worked out in my head, lol.

 

So I was looking at ant videos and kept seeing this one. I didn't want to sit down for an hour to watch it, but I did. Holy shit am I glad I did. I was expecting more on the subject of ants... But this video is just an all around great video. Touches on a lot of good subjects. A recommended watch. Han Solo narrates

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKbj3ZDmvdU]YouTube - Lord of the Ants[/ame]

 

Yeah, I started watching it and was like "What, this isn't about ants really... This is boring". But it soon got me hooked and it was one of the best videos I've seen.

 

I think you're thinking of fire ants? I am sure there are a few others we know of and probably a few we don't.

I also found this awesome page if anyone wants to learn some more ants stuffs.
FORA.tv - Ants: The Invisible Majority with Dr. Brian Fisher