I Gave My Pet Ant Colony a Baby Mouse

Oh man! You guys won’t believe what I filmed this week! This here is Marauder’s Alley, the terrarium I designed to house my pet colony of marauder ants, who live within this castle. Below it, within this giant test tube lives the colony. There are now a tonne of eggs laid by the queen, whom you guys will see in a bit. But with the huge booming population of the ant colony, I knew these ants would be needing protein, and a lot of it, and though they’ve been feeding on mostly mealworms since their

humble beginnings with me, this week, I had just the perfect nutrient-packed morsel for them: a baby mouse, and what I filmed after giving them this mouse, was an incredible journey of discovery that opened my eyes on the complexity, hard-working prowess, and genius of these ants, leaving my jaw on the floor. You’ll be mind blown when you see what the mouse looks like when when the ants are completely through with it by the end of the video! So, guys, sit back and enjoy how a bustling marauder

ant colony, with workers of different sizes and functions, naturally processes a dead baby mouse, showing why these ants are hands down some of the world’s craziest and most effective detritivores of the insect world, here on the Antscanada Ant Channel! Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel and hit the BELL ICON! Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! AC Family, behold the Leviathans. This was the winning name you guys voted for in their last video, and I love it, so we will from now on call these marauder

ants the Leviathans. The Leviathans have been a powerful army, whose brood now extends into five chambers within their test tube nest. When I look into the nest, the first thing I look for is the queen, our Titanic Empress. Is that her? Nope. That’s just a major, a large specialized worker. And if you look up there, you’ll see another major that just joined the ranks. It recently eclosed from its pupa, and will soon be moving around in its new massive body. Now, I always thought these huge worke

rs were only specialized in defense and cutting things up with their huge heads and mandibles, but after creating this video, I was enlightened to discover that these majors, who were now appearing in greater numbers around the nest, also have other very important jobs within the colony. You guys will love the ‘major’ discovery I made, no pun intended, on the importance of these majors later on in the video. As I continued to scan the nest for the Titanic Empress, suddenly a movement in one of t

he chambers caught my eye. A huge mass of exoskeleton emerged from the shadows, completely surrounded by ants all tugging and clamouring about, helping the huge living mass navigate around the space. And that was when I laid eyes on our gorgeous Titanic Empress, who was gracious enough to step into the light and view of my camera for all of us to behold. I was breath taken watching her turn and say hello to our camera, lugging around a completely swollen gaster full of eggs. She wore a living cl

oak of worker ants proudly, who clung to her body and the surrounding soils, ensuring she would never slip, as she moved around the nest where ever she pleased. I have never before seen an ant species so obsessed with catering to their queen’s every move like this, ensuring every tunnel could accommodate her, protecting her from slips or surrounding dangers that might make her uncomfortable or displeased. She would push into a tight tunnel, then decide to pull out as her ants would suddenly read

her decision and instantly help her lug backwards. The Titanic Empress’ entourage were in complete synch with the Queen’s every move and decision, and adjusted their assistance accordingly, as if they were all a single functioning organism. Oh, it looks like the queen changed her mind, and immediately the entourage stopped pulling and began pushing again. Only to decide, nope, the tunnel was too tight, so they helped her back out of it while ants were already on the job of widening the tunnel t

o avoid inconveniencing Her Majesty again! But having an entourage catering to her every whim was for good reason. The Titanic Empress was the most important member of the colony to keep comfortable, happy, and healthy as she was the one laying all the eggs, and my has she been busy! The brood is now occupying five levels within the nest! The eggs hatch into larvae, then become pupae, which eclose into adult worker ants, and the ants know the colony is about to get even larger, requiring more sp

ace for the growing brood pile, as they continue excavating more tunnels. Try to remember this nest layout now, as you will be amazed how it will look like later after the great mouse feeding! And speaking of which, AC Family the time has come. The Leviathans, with their exploding population, are hungrier now than they’ve ever been before, which is why I decided to give them this next protein morsel: this pinky mouse. Pet stores normally sell these pinky mice as food for small pet snakes, lizard

s, and large amphibians, but in our case, this baby mouse will be the perfect protein source our Leviathans will need to nourish their growing colony. Here we go! Time to place it now into Marauder’s Alley! And in! And now all we needed to do was wait. Now the thing I’ve discovered about our Leviathans is they prefer to feed at night, because during the day at this time of the year where I live, it’s scorching hot, and not an ideal time for the Leviathans to be above ground. I knew that I would

need to wait for night time to see the ants feeding from our mouse. I do admit, though, that although the dead mouse was already pre-killed, and wouldn’t suffer the horrible death of being eaten alive by a horde of ants, I still felt kind of bad doing this. The poor mouse. I continually had to keep reminding myself that this was a completely natural process that happens in nature all the time. I resolved to wait until night came for the Leviathans to emerge from their underground castle lair. Ev

ening came, and the ants had begun to emerge from their castle to begin their ritualistic nightly hunt for food. The ants were hungry, searching every little corner around the nest for edibles. Little did they know, the ultimate meal was waiting for them on the opposite side of the territories. To further encourage the ants to emerge, I turned off the lights, and decided to come back later. And AC Family, when I came back to check up on the mouse this is what I saw when I flicked the lights on.

Woah! The feeding frenzy had begun! I was amazed by the swarm. The first thing I noticed was that the ants were unbelievably attempting to carry the entire mouse home! The trail home was long, but the ants ran in excitement to and from their brand new find. All it took was one ant to tell the colony about the mouse, to set off the greatest feeding event of these ants’ lives! Now let’s have a look at how the ants are handling this massive mouse, which was many times their body weight! Have a look

at the ants tugging at the mouse’s tail! I even see a submajor there helping out! I also took notice of another submajor worker helping to remove obstructing gravel beneath the mouse, to assist in its transport home. And watch this! It even felt the need to remove obstructing ants! Haha! As I watched the submajor pulling on the tail, and another submajor come along and assist in pulling, I realized that these major ants also served another important function in ant colony life that I never befo

re considered: They were important for pulling strength! Science and ant literature always pegged these major workers as the defenders, as the epic jaw choppers of the colony, but from what we were witnessing here, AC Family, these submajors were the colony’s critical pulling muscles. I wondered if and when we would see the even larger majors emerge from the nest to help with this mouse! I mean, if chopping was indeed what these majors were specialized to do. But from what we were seeing now, it

seemed all the chopping was being done by the smaller ordinary workers. Check out these ants working on chopping the mouse’s ear off! And guys, check out these ants carrying a chunk of flesh back to the nest! It was crazy to watch them excitedly lift and transport all their mouse flesh cuttings down the trail. Doing this required some pretty incredible coordination! The ants masterfully brought the piece up to the castle and into the nest! But this made me think: If carrying the entire mouse to

the castle was their game plan, which by the way was still crazy to me because they seriously had a long way to go, how on earth were they going to fit that entire mouse into the hole of the castle, because from the looks of things it didn’t seem possible. The mouse was too big. But I knew, the ants would eventually figure things out, and hey, this was the very first time this colony had ever had to deal with a huge piece of meat before. I was curious to observe their thought process and execut

ion. This would be comparable to a group of humans lifting and carrying an entire building home! But it did seem like two separate operations were going on at once here. Have a look! There were some ants who were in favour of carrying the entire carcass home, as they pulled with all their might on the mouse’s tail and body. I knew this was a huge challenge for the ants because the gravel was loose, and the ants couldn’t get a proper grip enough to drag the huge dead weight of the mouse across th

e ground. Loose gravel pieces would just fly out of place once the ants held on and pulled. I took note of this, for when I needed to design their next setup. The ground must be firm and grippable! But the other plan the ants had was to continue chopping up pieces of meat from the carcass and bringing these smaller pieces back home. Again I was interested to see how the collective intelligence of the ants would deal with processing this huge mouse, which was so vital to their survival and succes

s of a colony. One thing’s for sure, they absolutely needed these nutrients, and needed to get as much of this mouse home as they could, lest it attract predators or other scavengers wanting to steal their new meal! This situation was not any different than something that could happen in the wild, but what the ants ended up doing with the mouse would truly blow me away. Through the night, the ants continued to tug and pull. It seemed like the ants were moving the mouse a millimetre an hour. Ther

e wasn’t much progress with transporting the entire mouse. What do you guys think? Will the ants still try to lug this entire carcass home? I watched as the ants continued to chop at the ear. The ants were determined to saw this mouse ear off to take back home. Let’s timelapse this a bit to the point when they actually do manage to free the ear from the mouse’s head… and cut! And there goes the ear! I know this probably sounds weird but, I find ants carrying food home like this, so therapeutic a

nd relaxing. Any of you guys agree? Our Leviathans could really use this chunk of meat to nourish the growing larvae, the queen to produce more eggs, and power the workers. I can also see why these marauder ant colonies grow so big in the wild. They’re feeding monsters! Imagine an ant colony that is so efficient at bringing home food. I watched in amazement as the ants masterfully scuttled across the terrain of rocks and gravel with the mouse’ ear in mandible, following their ant ‘Google Maps’ p

heromone trail all the way back home to their castle. I watched as ants continued to chop into the ear, neck area, and tug at the mouse’s toes, until I could no longer keep my eyes open and had to go to sleep. I would return to see their progress in the morning. At sunrise, I rushed to the nest to see how the ants were doing. It seemed the site had less ants now, with the activity and energy level quite different. The ants had covered some of the mouse in gravel and hulled large stones up to the

head and legs of the mouse. Interesting. Some ants were still tugging at the tail which was almost chewed off at this point. The mouse’s toes had all been amputated and carried home. There much less ants now wanting to pull and carry the mouse home. I believe they gave up on that whole operation all together and were just set on dissection on site. The ants also decided they were going to partially bury their find in gravel and stones, to help cover it up from thieves who might take it from the

m. The trail was also smaller now, as the ants were preparing to all retire within their nest for the day. The onset of sunlight was the ants’ cue to head home and rest to escape the heat of the sun. But the ants had a couple hours left to do as much work as they could. I watched as the ants worked at chopping off the mouse’s tail. While some ants were working at chopping the tail off, others were busy feeding at the exposed flesh. So cool! See that full social stomach. Any food eaten on site wo

uld be stored within their social stomachs and be brought back to the colony within their bodies and regurgitated up later to feed others within the nest. Judging from the mouse’s face, it seemed the rotting process had begun and I indeed could smell the stench of it now. Ants were feeding on what they could from the neck area, as well. By midday, the carcass had been abandoned with no ants in sight. All I could see were these small springtails enjoying the carcass. I wondered if the ants had ta

ken all they needed now from the mouse and were finished with it. I wasn’t sure but there was one thing I wanted to see: the inside of the nest! And little did I know, looking at the colony within the nest would uncover a pretty crazy revelation! I opened up the nest to peek inside. Wow! There’s a major. I wanted to see mouse body parts being worked on, as I scanned the nest. It looked as though the larvae had had a feast, all with full bellies. I could not believe the brood pile! There’s the Ti

tanic Empress! Surely she too had her fill on mouse meat. I continued to scan upwards, and spotted a major. What was amazing to me was how turgid and full this major was, so full of mouse meat and fluids, and AC Family that was when it occurred to me. Oh, man! Hold on. Maybe that’s why we didn’t see these large majors exit the nest to help! These majors were acting as the colony’s repletes! So let me explain: in ants some species have what are called ‘repletes’, which are large workers that act

as living food stores for the colony, keeping collected food within their bodies to be regurgitated gradually over time when the ants needed it. As I looked around, I noticed that every single major in the nest had full gasters, and it's no wonder they hadn't emerged from the nest during this feeding event because they each had an even more important role: being the colony’s repletes! Keeping collected food sterile inside a repletes body is so much better than having scraps of food laying around

in the nest because it decreases the chance of mold outbreak, which could endanger the colony. The workers could just feed from the repletes and then go on to feed the larvae and the queen. What an incredible revelation! I can’t wait for the colony’s supermajors to arrive, even larger majors that will likely appear sooner or later in the colony. I wonder what intricate and unexpected jobs we will discover the supermajors have during these feeding events! Gosh, I love learning new things about a

nts. I covered up the colony to allow them to rest and digest in peace. When night came, I turned the lights on. Aha! The ants weren’t done! They were back for more! The ants were busy feeding from cavities in the mouse’s semi-decayed body. Their trail was still as busy as ever. Gosh, look at them running! At this point, I noticed the ants were still getting a lot of nourishment from the mouse’s body. Their gasters were full. Ants were entering the carcass through the opening of the ear now. I a

lso wondered how ants effectively eat decaying meat safely. I’m sure they’re adapted for it, but if we humans were to eat spoiled meat like this we’d get sick. It amazed me that the ants had the capability of eating bacteria-ridden decaying flesh like this. Parts of the mouse were now looking like beef jerky! Ew! As gross as all this seemed, I was happy the ants were happy. The next day, the ants had again abandoned the carcass leaving it partially buried, but surprisingly, were right back where

they left off feeding from the carcass by night. Running as usual up and down their trail with excitement. The ants still saw value in this rotten mouse corpse. I was already beginning to see the mouse’s skull. By the next day, the ants had again left, and no longer came back to salvage more meat from it. They had finally finished all they could from the baby mouse. I removed the cover to check on the colony and was amazed by what I saw. Brood rooms, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and now 6. A brand new space

the ants had excavated all the way at the bottom of the test tube to accommodate the next batch of brood coming. I bet the queen ordered for this! I spotted a major’s full gaster and was happy the colony had been satiated by my mouse gift offering. For me seeing the replete major so full of food was a reminder that sometimes life must give itself up in order to create more life, so though I initially felt bad for the baby mouse, I realized its body provided nourishment for the thousands of Levia

thans. The queen’s gaster was bigger now than I had ever seen it, and it made me happy to know she was busy producing more eggs to grow this colony bigger. The Leviathans were about to enter their golden age now that they’ve begun eating some considerable sources of food. They’ve even begun accepting seeds! I’ll continue to offer them a wide variety of food, so they can continue to grow into a massive colony, like some of those I’ve witnessed in the wild. But speaking of which, AC Family, at the

start of the video, I mentioned I’d be asking you guys something very important regarding our Leviathans here, and it’s this. So it seems over the next two weeks, this booming colony will completely fill this test tube, and will be needing a new home. What setup would you guys like to see them moved into? Let me know in the comments and I’ll find inspiration from your ideas for a future home for our beloved Leviathans! I need to start planning their housing now and will be brainstorming ideas.

And so, before you go, AC Fanoly, please remember to hit the LIKE button as it really helps a lot, to let youtube know you enjoy these ant videos and that they’re worth sharing to new audiences, and hit that SUBSCRIBE button to join our ever growing AC Family so you can continue to follow the life story of our Leviathans. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated on their progress as they rise to power, hopefully assuming their throne as one of the greatest colonies on this channel. I have a great fe

eling about them guys! Until then, AC Family, thank you all for watching and supporting the ants. It’s ant love forever!