Transcript
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Ever thought about keeping ants as pets?
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No, seriously.
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Even if you're not an insect enthusiast, what you're about to hear in this episode could change your mind about these tiny six-legged masterminds.
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From surprising social behaviors to eco-friendly practices, the fascinating world of ants might just offer you a new perspective on these busy little buggers.
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Stay tuned.
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You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and today I am thrilled to welcome Zachary Liu, a myrmecologist from McGill University, who is dedicated to making science fun and accessible to everyone For everyone.
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Together, we're going to explore the fascinating world of ants, which I never thought.
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I would even say those words together fascinating and ants but I am very intrigued now from doing my research so, from their complex behaviors to why ant keeping has become one of the fastest growing hobbies around.
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So, zach, thank you for being here and for reaching out to be on the show, because I probably never would have done it the other way around.
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No worries on the show, because I probably never would have done it the other way around.
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No worries, I think ant keeping just as a whole, it's something that you wouldn't think is so interesting until you actually look into it, right?
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Yeah, exactly.
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So I noticed on your.
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I was looking on your website and I'm assuming that cute little boy that has the butterfly in his hand is you, that's me.
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Okay, so obviously you've been a I wouldn't even say it's a bug guy, right Cause that would be the wrong term but how did you get involved in ants, butterflies, things like that?
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Yeah, so it's actually an interesting story and it depends how far back you want to go.
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But my mom was from like a very rural part of Southern China.
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Like this is somewhere where, like every single time I go back, there's like little endangered species.
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I'll notice like oh, I've seen this in a book somewhere.
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I didn't know they were like and they're just going to be everywhere.
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So when she was growing up she was really afraid of bugs and for her that was like really bad because they were everywhere.
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So when I was born, one of the things she wanted to do to make sure it was okay I don't want my son to be afraid of bugs and then so at night, like want my son to be afraid of bugs and then so at night, like between bedtime stories, she'd pull out like an encyclopedia of all the animals, flip through it, read it to me.
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And the idea is that I've been very acquainted with I'm going to say like almost all things nature ever since I was like basically a couple of months old, and the thing is that became a thing where, like I'd walk home with like frogs in my pockets at three years old.
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I've worked with almost all of the small animals.
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I've worked with most reptiles like amphibians.
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I've got a couple of lizards back in my room.
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I've worked with a lot of butterflies, I think in middle school.
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Sometimes if you walked into the living room there'd be like 600 butterflies flapping around.
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It's just something I really enjoyed.
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Ants is something that I started later on and the reason it stuck was just because I think that ants, in terms of their behavior, are so much more interesting and I think it's honestly a little bit like us, right?
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Like people, they're very social, they have very complex behaviors, and the way I started Canada Ant Colony so the business specifically was really just well, there were costs in terms of equipment or food that I needed to pay for in order to have my own hobby running, and then so initially it would just be okay, well, I'll catch more of this species or I'll breed more of this species, and I know this person wants and will trade for something that I want.
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And then that slowly, slowly grew and over time it snowballed into something where I was like OK, well, we're dealing with like 700 colonies, we're dealing with 5,000 colonies, maybe it's better to use cash in them.
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That's kind of how this business started.
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That's great, though.
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I mean, I think there's nothing better than finding a business that is rooted in a passion, but obviously passion alone is not enough to make a business.
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So, you know, you've got to be you've definitely got to be smart about it and evolve.
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So when did you actually start the company?
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Like, how did you make that transition from scientist and studying to?
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I think I want to, you know, turn this into a business.
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So this actually started the other way around, where I was in the business first and then I slowly moved into academia, or rather like whatever contribution that do have.
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So the thing is is that, generally speaking, well, at least a couple years ago, if you wanted ants, it'd be relatively difficult to just find someone who had a lot of them on hand, and that includes for scientific labs.
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So, for example, I'd have customers who were research teams, who were looking to study the effects of certain chemicals on ants in terms of pesticides.
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I'd have other groups that were looking to say like, oh, we've heard about this species found in this area, but we don't have any actual confirmation.
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Would you have any information on this?
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And then so slowly it's more so that it got looped into the scientific community rather than the other way around.
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And one thing actually that I've found really interesting is that more and more, more a lot of scientists in that study answer like myrmecologists who started as myrmecologists are consulting hobbyists, so ant keepers, for information about ants, because generally we specialize in like different aspects of the field.
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They'll typically know a bit less on the actual husbandry and making sure that ants are thriving and some of the stuff that happens, like outdoors, where a lot of times when they're like cooped up in a lab, they're not able to observe a lot of the wild behaviors.
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And then, on the flip side, like, most ant keepers are not going to know, like the molecular stuff, they're not going to know the ins and outs of like which hormones or developmental organs signal what processes in the ant.
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So there's been a slow communication and I'm personally someone that started on the ant keeping side and then increasingly I'm having more experience with the academia side.
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Okay.
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So when I think about ants, I think about the old school.
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What was his name?
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Uncle Milton, uncle Miltie, whatever it was the ant farm that you could, it almost looked like a sandwich right.
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Exactly, yeah, and it's like OK, it was kind of.
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It was kind of up there with sea monkeys which I had ordered many, many times as a kid and never quite got them to do anything.
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So it was just kind of an odd novelty thing.
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But in this day and age, what kind of people are you seeing keeping ants, and why?
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Like what's the fascination, do you think?
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Well, I think, of a pretty big population, A lot of the ant keepers are still kids and young adults, and I think that's just because those are the people that have a lot more time.
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Those are the people that remember more clearly like okay, being little, like being outside watching all the ants, like carry this stuff, being outside watching all the ants carry this stuff, and I think that was the reason that it was so popular when Uncle Milton released that little ant farm, I think in the 60s right.
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Yeah.
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Right now we're also seeing a lot of people in their mid-20s to mid-30s as our biggest demographic, but we're seeing people from all across the spectrum.
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In terms of age, I would say it's a little bit male heavy, but not significantly so it's like a 60-40 split, but I think, generally speaking, ant keeping is a very diverse hobby in terms of.
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I think a very large portion of people have looked at ants at some point in their childhood and been like wow, that's really interesting, I wonder what they're doing, and I think that's a lot of the draw of what brings people into the hobby into the first place.
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So, as far as actually keeping the ants, you know and I did look on your website at the variety of different habitats I guess I was anticipating like that there would be these enormous habitats, but it's not.
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They don't necessarily need to be in something really large, but there seem to be different.
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You know different styles maybe for different types of ants, or how does that work?
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Like what would somebody anticipate if they were like okay, I'm thinking about doing this, what kind of, you know, what kind of equipment or things would I need?
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Yeah, so generally ant keeping it all, the setups kind of come in two parts.
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The first part is the formicarium or the nest.
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That's where the queen, that's where the babies are being born, that's where most of the ants live and it's basically what's happening underground normally.
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There's another section that's called the outworld.
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It's where the ants are foraging for food, it's where they're putting their garbage, that's for them what's normally like outside right.
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And in terms of like, there's small variations in terms of the material, in terms of the material, in terms of the aesthetics of what one of these nests look like.
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But generally speaking they all fit into that framework and typically the vast majority of species can be kept in the vast majority of nests.
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I do appreciate your comment on the size of a lot of these nests.
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So one of the reasons ant keeping, I think, is so easy is because ants they're smart and they live in such a wide variety of habitats and environments, and so one of the things with ant keeping, for example, is that the ants they'll change or they'll control their growth rates based on the environment they have.
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And so, for example, you'll have some people that just keep a colony in the size of a setup, maybe the size of their palm, and the idea is that if you wanted to and you gave them a lot of extra food and you heated them a lot, you could grow them to something and I've known people that have done this where they'll have parts of a nest in their basement and then they'll have tubes going through their stairs into their living room and there'll be another part of a nest there They'll have all the way into the bedroom.
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You can have setups that span three or four stories, but really it's something where because the ants, they'll generally adapt to what they're given.
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It's something that can also be something which is on the corner of your desk, and there's species that naturally, for example, will live in literally size of, will live in literally an acorn, and there are species that will take tens of meters of worth of soil out of the ground.
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So there's a lot of diversity within the actual size, but generally speaking, they can all.
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Most of the ants can live with most of the nests.
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So I would assume I know that one of the things that I don't know if this is something you actually said or something that I had read that it was.
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You know, it's kind of similar to keeping fish, and I will be the first to admit I've had terrible luck keeping fish, but so, hopefully, ants maybe are a little bit easier.
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But I'm always concerned when I'm keeping something in some type of container.
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Is it the appropriate environment for that pet?
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It's like, yes, it can survive, but is it thriving?
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Is it for lack of a better term enjoying its life or living its life as it should be intended?
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So I would assume that knowledge and research comes into play in picking the right ants and, like you said, the way that you maintain the environment so that they're matched appropriately to their habitat that you're planning on keeping them in.
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Is that right?
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Yeah, I think that's a big part of it.
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This is something that I think is unique to ants, for example, but a lot of people that are used to other pets.
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The main issue is, for example, that their setup is too small.
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Over-crowning is a very big issue with a lot of pets.
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For ants it's usually the other way around.
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So normally in the wild, because ants, they're digging slowly into a wood or soil or a substrate, normally their nests are pretty compact and, for example, the way they protect each other from diseases, it comes from grooming, it comes from being very close to each other and one of the behaviors they do is that they'll create a garbage pile, they'll create a graveyard and they'll put garbage or the dead bodies there, respectively, and then with very big habitats, if it's too big, the ants struggle to distinguish between what's underground and what's outside, and then they'll start like piling garbage inside, for example.
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So generally for ants, the most important things are just that you don't want to give them something that's more than like three or four times the number of chambers or the amount of space they can cover, like the biggest important things are giving them heat and then in terms of, for example, like actual enrichment.
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Normally, what I would suggest is having a large foraging area or a large outworld, because ants they're used to a very, very small nest underground, but they're theoretically used to infinite outdoor space, and so I would assume that any of those behaviors that you'd be looking for more so in the wild, that would help if you would have larger and maybe even more like decorator or complex foraging areas for them just to explore around.
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Well, and I would think that that would be more interesting, you know, you know, if you had just something that was very, very small and very limited, because I'm assuming they're self-contained we're not taking the ants out, or are we Taking the ants out of the environment and playing with them, or letting them?
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crawl.
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Generally they're self-contained.
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Okay.
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So if they're self-contained in something that's not all that exciting for them or for us, then how is that good for anybody?
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So creating an environment where you can see what they would naturally be doing, like you said, foraging and things like that.
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Generally, one of the issues with this is that there's just not that much information in terms of enrichment for insects.
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We definitely know that some of them exhibit quote-unquote play behavior.
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And then there have been a couple of ant keepers that I've tried, for example, like putting little tinfoil balls for like harvester ants, and they'll notice them, they're like they'll be fiddling with them all the time and there's definitely, I would say, an importance in terms of, like the habitat complexity, where, if it's just like flat terrain, that's probably not ideal for them but it's.
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I would say this is a, this is somewhere where it's definitely a very evolving part of the hobby, a very evolving part of just the information that we do know about how to give them the best life that we can.
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But I would assume for sure that having a little bit more complexity there is better.
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Yeah.
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And generally that is going to correlate with how interesting the setup is for you to watch as well.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly how interesting the setup is for you to watch as well.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly so you had mentioned I never even thought about an ant graveyard and an ant garbage dump.
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It sounds to me and I know that you had mentioned this you know the idea of the social structures that they have and the way that they live their lives.
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One of the things that you mentioned was some of the behaviors like doing surgery and you know, tell us a little bit about some of the interesting things that you know.
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Let's say, if I was investigating it for myself or if I was a parent, then I was like, hmm, you know, what's my kid going to learn by having some ants in a thing on his desk or her desk?
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What would we be seeing on a daily basis?
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Yeah, for sure.
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I think one of the biggest things that is most obvious and a lot of times when I show this to people they'll be like wait, sorry, you're telling me the ants did this by themselves Is that the ants.
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What they do is that they'll organize the entire nest and where everything is based on environmental conditions like humidity, like temperature.
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So, for example, for most ants generally, the eggs need the most water because they have really thin membranes.
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They drought very easily, so they'll select the wettest part of the nest.
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That's where the eggs are.
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And then, as an add-on to that, it's like well, the queen lays eggs and then.
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So maybe, instead of moving the eggs all around, we'll just move the queen near into a chamber, near like the egg chamber as well, and they'll have for, for example, a distribution where cocoons or pupae they're okay with drier areas, they'll be in a dry area, and then so, for example, with different types of foods, like seeds, for a lot of harvester ant species, they'll find a dry area of the nest.
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The idea is that they don't want them to rot or to germinate as basically a granary, and then you'll even have some species, even even species in the US and Canada, where they have a strategy.
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Where do you know how malting works?
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You've heard of malt before.
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Like malt liquor, yeah for sure.
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So the idea is that you take some seeds, usually barley, and then you let them germinate a little bit and that makes them a lot softer and it creates a lot of sugar.
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So some of the ants have figured out how to do something similar for a lot of the harder seeds that they're digesting, and so what you'll see is that you'll see ants move larger seeds into a wet area, wait until it starts sprouting, and then they'll go in and empty it out and carve it out.
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But they're not brewing their own beer down there.
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They're not brewing their own beer.
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Not yet, not yet they do make their own bread.
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They do make their own bread, though.
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Really.
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Yeah, You'll have some ants where they'll chew that up with an enzyme and it breaks down the starches into sugar and it's basically like it's almost like a cookie dough, basically, but for ants.
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That's crazy.
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Another really interesting thing.
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This is always something that people don't believe, but like being able to potty train your ants.
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Okay, when you live in really high colony densities, normally what becomes a risk is disease, right.
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So ants have a lot of sophisticated ways to prevent disease.
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You have some species where, for example, they'll go outside, they'll collect some types of tree resin and they'll spray it with their own venom and it combines to create an antiseptic and they'll cover their nests with that.
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And then so the idea is that let's say there's a forager from outside, let's say that on the off chance they've contacted some sort of disease or pathogen on the way back, just by walking for their nest, they're getting sanitized because it's covered in this antiseptic Like.
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Another example is the graveyards we were talking about earlier.
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So generally ants, they want to put dead bodies and dead things in garbage as far away from the nest as possible and they want to make it so that it's somewhere that's dry so it doesn't rot and fester basically with some other disease.
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So one thing you get to see is that you get to watch the ants.
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Normally they'll pick a side of the outworld that's far away from the nest that's dry and they'll put all the garbage there.
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And then the fun part is the ants.
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They communicate with each other using like different chemical cues, and one of those chemical cues is something along the lines of okay, this is garbage, you have to put it in the garbage pile.
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And so one thing you can do, you can put a little jar in a foraging area, for example, and then you put the ant's garbage inside the jar and they'll think okay, I have to put the garbage in the garbage pile, and it just so happens that it's moved into this little jar.
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I'll keep putting garbage in the jar.
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Taking the hint.
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So what constitutes, other than, I would assume, their waste?
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I mean, what is ant garbage, like wrappers from pizza boxes?
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What are we talking about here that they're putting over there?
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Yeah, so a lot of it is going to be poop.
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One funny thing, one recent discovery, is that there are scientists that have created this whole model that has helped them figure out how ants choose which room to be, like the designated toilet room A lot of times times.
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So ants, generally they'll eat some, they need some sort of carbohydrates.
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Normally that's like sugars like think like maple syrup or honey or nectar, and then they need protein.
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So and for when you're little, that's really in the form of other insects.
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So a lot of what they're throwing away is shells of other insects, so maybe like like a piece of a cricket that they couldn't get to, or like the wing of like a fly.
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So ants, a lot of ants, they'll spin a little cocoon before they emerge.
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It's kind of like they grow up in a similar way butterflies do, through complete metamorphosis and they'll have a little pile of like cocoon casings, for example, and that'll be part of the waste.
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Sometimes some ants will use like sand as basically a sponge to pick up liquids and then so you'll see a pile of like, also just like sticky sand, and it's stuff that they used it to move around, some sugar, and then it's they've trunk all of it and it's sticky.
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It's gross.
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They'll throw it away.
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So tell me about the surgeries.
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I have to know what.
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What kind of surgery are they doing on each other down there?
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where, in a leg for example, they'll figure out whether to do an amputation and then whether or not to apply antibiotics directly to the wound, whether or not they have to sanitize or, for example, spray acid onto the wound as well or the surrounding area.
00:20:31.911 --> 00:20:42.682
But there's a recent discovery where certain diseases like one of them is called pseudomonas it's something that affects humans as well, so there's big outbreaks in hospitals all the time.
00:20:42.682 --> 00:20:51.684
But it seems that it's a disease where, when ants are infected alone, the survival rate is something like 8%.
00:20:51.684 --> 00:20:54.231
8% of them will survive after two weeks.
00:20:54.231 --> 00:21:03.230
But when they're in a group where they're actively like, oh, they find an infection, they'll cut off that part of the limb, they'll apply antibiotics to it.
00:21:03.230 --> 00:21:06.288
The survival rate jumps to something like 80% 90%.
00:21:07.865 --> 00:21:09.609
That's crazy, that's just amazing.
00:21:11.152 --> 00:21:12.000
I thought this was really funny.
00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:14.407
I also for this disease.
00:21:14.407 --> 00:21:21.482
Specifically, I looked it up what like the regular survival rate for people was like in our hospitals?
00:21:21.482 --> 00:21:23.869
It's somewhere in the 60% range.
00:21:24.652 --> 00:21:24.811
Wow.
00:21:26.281 --> 00:21:28.288
So it's something that they're apparently doing better than we are.
00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:29.382
Apparently.
00:21:29.382 --> 00:21:30.326
Apparently they've got.
00:21:30.326 --> 00:21:32.325
They got this, they got a better system down than we do.
00:21:32.325 --> 00:21:36.700
Okay, so let's let's talk about kind of the like I mentioned.
00:21:36.700 --> 00:21:41.220
I have not had the best of luck keeping fish, despite doing tons of research.
00:21:41.220 --> 00:21:55.019
Maybe I'm making it too complicated in some instances, but something that I had read, and I think it was on your website, talked about that, once you have your setup and appropriate setup, that it's not horribly time consuming.
00:21:55.019 --> 00:22:08.148
Because I'm thinking about kids, and as much as a child might be interested in caring for a pet, their time commitment is probably not what we might want it to be as parents sometimes.
00:22:08.148 --> 00:22:17.329
So what all is involved, let's say, whether it's on a daily or weekly, monthly, however often we have to intervene in this environment that we've created once we get it set up.
00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:24.086
Yeah, so generally ant keeping it's a really easy hobby, and the reason is because the ants are doing most of the work for you.
00:22:24.227 --> 00:22:24.426
Yeah.
00:22:24.788 --> 00:22:27.142
Generally all you have to do it takes around five minutes a week.
00:22:27.142 --> 00:22:28.286
Number one give them water.
00:22:28.286 --> 00:22:29.288
That's twice a week.
00:22:29.288 --> 00:22:32.570
You give them some sugars and that's usually like a maple syrup or honey.
00:22:32.570 --> 00:22:34.961
That can be like a drop on like a tinfoil plate.
00:22:34.961 --> 00:22:37.866
There's also a lot of like automatic feeders available.
00:22:37.866 --> 00:22:49.622
Where it becomes you, you fill it every two weeks or so and then you give them like a piece of an insect so that normally that can be like a piece of a mealworm from like a pet store or like a cricket or even like if there's like a fly air house and you catch it and you throw it in.
00:22:49.622 --> 00:22:50.022
They'll eat it.
00:22:50.364 --> 00:23:03.932
One really nice thing about ants and so I'm someone who has to travel a lot for work and also because my family lives five hours away, but most ants and this is especially in the northern hemisphere, wouldn't apply as much in Texas.
00:23:03.932 --> 00:23:13.265
But, for example, normally in the winter, when it gets cold, the ants, they go into a hibernative state.
00:23:13.265 --> 00:23:14.067
It's something called diapause.
00:23:14.067 --> 00:23:21.453
They basically slow down, the babies stop growing, the adults they stop going out and foraging and it's like a very deep sleep, or at least not as much activity for a couple of months.
00:23:21.453 --> 00:23:23.762
And one thing you can do.
00:23:23.762 --> 00:23:30.611
For example, let's say that you're not able to take care of your ant colony for a while, throw them in the fridge For them.
00:23:30.611 --> 00:23:43.972
They'll act as if winter has arrived, so they'll slow down and everything All you have to give them is water, and then say, at a better time of year let's say, or let's say that you're just going vacation for a couple of months or you'll be out of your house for a couple of months.
00:23:44.099 --> 00:23:46.409
And you can't find an ant sitter Right.
00:23:47.099 --> 00:23:52.832
You come back, you take them out of the fridge and they'll resume life as if springtime just came back.
00:23:53.573 --> 00:23:55.486
Wow, how long can they stay like that?
00:23:56.980 --> 00:23:59.292
Generally speaking, around like four or five months up to Wow.
00:23:59.292 --> 00:24:01.220
Generally speaking, around four or five months up to Wow.
00:24:01.220 --> 00:24:06.664
Generally, the time period we're giving them here is around three, four months.
00:24:06.664 --> 00:24:16.251
I am from Canada and I know that in the States most of them need a lot less than that or would work with a lot less than that.
00:24:16.251 --> 00:24:22.616
But even in parts of California we're talking about it could be in the fridge for three months pretty easily.
00:24:23.599 --> 00:24:24.141
Oh wow.
00:24:24.981 --> 00:24:25.202
All right.
00:24:25.202 --> 00:24:44.743
So I noticed on your website that and I love the resources on there there's so much to read, there's so much to educate yourself, and it's nice to kind of have that number one from a reliable source and to have it in one place and I like that you kind of guided people towards, like beginner this is, you know, this is where a beginner might start.
00:24:44.743 --> 00:24:53.313
So let's let's talk a little bit about species, Cause my, my experience with ants living in Texas uh, you know, growing up, yes, the ants were fascinating.
00:24:53.313 --> 00:24:53.560
They were.
00:24:53.560 --> 00:25:00.027
I don't know what ants they were, they didn't bite, they didn't sting, they didn't invade your house, they were kind of outside doing their thing.
00:25:00.027 --> 00:25:05.429
You know, kind of like we called them picnic ants and that was kind of it and they were fine.
00:25:05.429 --> 00:25:09.070
But here fire ants are the scourge of my existence.
00:25:09.070 --> 00:25:15.834
As a matter of fact, I've got fire ant bites all over my feet because I was accidentally standing in some.
00:25:16.442 --> 00:25:22.728
It's just like a constant thing, and I had seen something somewhere that was talking about people keeping fire ants as pets.
00:25:22.728 --> 00:25:27.295
So I guess what I want to know is what kind of species are we talking about here?
00:25:27.295 --> 00:25:36.586
And I also noticed on your website when I was looking at the actual like ordering ants, that there were specific states, like Georgia only.
00:25:36.586 --> 00:25:38.351
And so how does that work?
00:25:38.351 --> 00:25:46.173
We just can't like randomly pull some invasive species from somewhere in the world and you know, oops, it got out.
00:25:46.173 --> 00:25:48.325
You know that probably wouldn't be good, right.
00:25:48.988 --> 00:25:51.205
Gotcha, yeah, so I guess there's a couple of questions.
00:25:51.205 --> 00:25:53.759
The first thing is like what answer are we normally selling?
00:25:53.759 --> 00:26:05.445
So, generally on our website, we're selling species that are native to especially Canada and a lot of them from the States, and species that are like, maybe not native but they're very established.
00:26:05.445 --> 00:26:18.241
So think about, like rock pigeons, for example, they're not native in every single city, but they're going to be there in every single city and they're going to be species that theoretically, you could find outside and if they get out it's not going to be a very big deal.
00:26:18.241 --> 00:26:31.803
That's generally what we're working with in terms of the species on our website and we take care where species that are particularly able to become pests pharaoh ants especially, for example we generally stay away from If someone has an experience.
