WEBVTT - Crazy Ants and Electricity 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey, are you welcome to stuff to 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.440 blow your mind? My name is Robert Land and Joe McCormick. Robert, 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.360 Let's have a reading from our holy book The Daily Mail. Shelly, Yes, 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:27.680 let's do headline June crazy ants that feast on electronics 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:32.200 and are invading the US cannot be killed with normal insecticide. 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.839 Oh wow, I love I love everything about that headline 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.360 because it just implies that these ants are coming to 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.440 eat your precious xbox and there's nothing you can do 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.960 to penetrate its exo skeleton. It's just gonna laugh at you. 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:49.199 They feast on electronics, They're crazy, cannot be killed, cannot 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.320 as capitalized. Um, they've got the little subheads here. Since 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.880 it was first spotted in Houston in two thousand two, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.000 it's spread to some twenty one counties in Texas, twenty 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.800 counties in Florida, and a few locations in Mississippi and Louisiana. 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.119 The omnivorous and attacks and kills other species, as well 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.440 as monopolizing food sources to the detriment of the entire ecosystem. 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.520 It also attacks electrical wiring causing millions of dollars worth 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.600 of damage. So it's just an unstoppable force. It's like 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:23.600 an invasion. I'm imagining those ants from Indiana Jones and 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:25.759 The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Did you watch there? 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.440 You didn't watch it? No, you know that the buzz 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.960 wasn't all that great, so I just never got around 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.199 to it. Robert, I get mad when people haven't watched 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.800 the same bad movies I have. You've got to go 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.399 subject yourself to this. Have you heard about the gopher? No, 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.800 there's a gopher like in Caddyshack Gopher. Yeah, this is 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.039 like a c g I gopher in it. And there's 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.000 also c g I ants marching through the forest and 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.960 attacking people. M I should probably check it out at 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.400 some point. No, don't waste your time. It's the best 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.280 part of it is Cape Blanchet, who's the best part 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.240 of everything she does. But there are crazy ants. They're 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.440 essentially crazy ants or their giant crazy ants. Is that 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.200 what you're saying. No, I think it's actually not a 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.200 very good point of comparison once we get into the 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.000 details on crazy ants. But man, so I I put 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:16.720 this up here because I hate the Daily Mail. That's 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.079 I shouldn't say I hate things, but uh, yeah, I 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.520 I kind of hate the way their their headlines work. 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.960 But I also can't resist that they just go for it. 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:31.160 They say, cannot be killed and feast on electronics. But 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.399 of course we are talking about a real organism here, Yeah, 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.280 one that's not quite as outlandish as this. Uh, these 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.320 headlines and subheads make it sound. No, And while the 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.880 idea of feasting on electronics is not quite exactly right, 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.960 it's not as far off as you might imagine based 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.200 on I don't know, you know, whatever you found out 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.560 when you clicked on that Daily Mail article about the 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.440 Longness monster washing up on the beach, you know. And 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.560 I also have to point out that I have I 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.800 have heard versions of this where people think that the 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.560 crazy ants eat electricity, which is also not true. Yeah, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.519 like their RoboCop they need to charge up at not right, Yeah, 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.280 they're seeking out your electronics so that they can they 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.799 can they just jagg onto that that that precious juice. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.480 Did you ever see that mid career West Craven movie Shocker? No, 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.440 but this is one that that you've been telling me 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.400 about for years. Yeah, it's so it's West Craven at 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.240 at the height of his I don't care, and he 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:33.000 makes a movie with the Oh what's a Mitch Pelegie, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.680 the boss from the X Files. Yeah, he plays like 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:37.760 a murderer who gets sent to the electric chair, and 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.560 then he turns into an electricity killer who like can 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.400 fly through TVs, and he can go through power lines, 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.400 and he when he gets hurt, he can heal himself 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.080 by sticking his fingers in an electrical He's basically the 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.080 electricity gremlin from Gremlins to the New Batch. You know, 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.119 I've never seen Grimlin's too. How many people hate me? Now? 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.880 Uh no, So let's explain. Are a little bit more 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.200 anecdotes about what the deal with this crazy aunt is 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.600 and why people say it feasts on electricity, even if 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.640 that's not exactly true. So there is a New York 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.600 Times story on crazy ants by the writer John Muallam, 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.880 and it tells stories of people with crazy ant nightmares 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.600 in their homes, specifically with the ants attacking their electronics. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.279 So there's one story about a man named Mike who 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.560 had his house infested to an unbelievable degree. Quote one day, 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.320 his air conditioning stopped working. A musty smell seeped from 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.000 the vents in his living room floor, so he powered 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.520 up his shop back to clear them. By the time 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.960 he was done, he had sucked out five gallons of ants. 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.920 Soon he and his wife were waking up to find 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.719 vast frantic networks of ants zipping around the kitchen floor 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.760 in all directions. When the picture on their fifty inch 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.440 box television started flickering, Mike took off the back panel 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.440 and found the guts throbbing with ants. Oh that's that's lovely. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.960 I mean that just sounds like like Tales from the 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.280 Dark Side episode. Yeah, you can't, well there, what's in 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.000 the Tales from the Crypt movie? There's a guy who 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.000 gets flooded with It's not ants. I think it's cockroaches, 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.480 isn't it? Oh, are you thinking about Stephen King's creep show? 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.000 Not Tales from the Crypt creep show? But you know 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:18.840 the Tales from the Crypt. I'm sure it has an 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.400 insect horror episode that I'm forgetting. Yeah. Another story from 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.280 that New York Times article, there's a man named strom Duke. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.000 The story of strom Duke quote, one evening his iron 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.479 stopped working, Then sparks shot from the appliance, and a 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.520 tide of crazy ants came rushing out. Other Dukes lived 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.719 in neighboring houses, and they all had similar stories. The 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.200 ants had caused six dollars of electrical damage to one 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:50.000 woman's car, infiltrated the glass break detector of one house's 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.440 alarm system, causing the alarm to blare, and just the 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.120 previous night, shut off the water at Strom's brother Melvin's 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.960 house by disabling the pressure switch on his well. It 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.880 really sounds like it could be a horror movie. I 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.920 can imagine all these essentially the movie Squirm, except instead 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.360 of screaming earthworms, you have ants just streaming out of 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.720 telephones in various household gadgets. Yeah, and if you don't 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.400 dig too deep, if somebody just says it, it sounds 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.640 like it could be plausible. Right. The answer eating electricity. 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.520 You keep finding them inside the TV, inside the iron, 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:26.359 inside the sensor, the air conditioner, compressor, the gas pump. 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.039 They're everywhere the wires are, So why why wouldn't we 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.120 assume they're eating electricity? Yeah? I mean, the mere idea 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.840 of ants being drowned electricity isn't that crazy? I mean 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:41.760 eating electronics? Yes, that's nuts. But organisms are inherently bioelectric, 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.919 even in the know the mighty electric eel. It's nothing 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.680 compared to lightning or the lethal volts coiled inside your 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.600 household electric outlets, but it's there. It's it's really not 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.279 that grandiose to think of it as as a sparkle 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.000 of life. Even so. Yeah, just the mere connection between 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.520 electricity organisms, uh, you know, one can easily buy into that. Yeah, 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.120 you can easily imagine they're trying to power up right, 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.200 or at least that Yeah, there's maybe some kind of 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:15.280 electromagnetic field being omitted, and that field tends to draw 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.120 in insects of a certain sort. It makes me think of, um, Robert, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.600 did you ever see that ants circling the iPhone viral video? 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.840 I don't think I ever did, know, Well, allow me 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:31.600 to show you something. Oh wow, So it's just a 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.840 phone looks like it's receiving a call, and ants are 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.760 just circling around it like uh, like they're they're intending 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.200 to invade it where they was sieging it, corralling it 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.920 even yea. As I look at this video now, it's 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.960 got almost five million views. It obviously was a viral 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.720 hit and It was published by something on YouTube called 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:56.000 Viral Video Lab. I'm pretty sure it's fake. I looked 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.280 at the Snopes thing on it. The Snopes article is like, well, 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.280 you know, we haven't proven it's real. It's hard to 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:04.760 prove a video like that is fake. But a lot 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.520 of the people who have been analyzing it, you know, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:08.840 their Reddit threads on it and stuff, and people are like, 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:10.320 you know, if you look at certain parts of it, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.880 it really looks like the ants are blurry kind of 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.840 animations that have been edited into the to the picture. 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:22.520 But yet again, it doesn't seem impossible that a phone 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.920 which puts out an electromagnetic field could cause something like 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.440 ants to circle around it. I mean, we know that 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.119 certain animals like birds use a certain amount of magnetic 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:37.000 kind of path finding to orient themselves for migration. We 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.120 know that there are electromagnetically sensitive animals that live in 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.280 the water. Sharks and rays have a certain amount of 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.360 electromagnetic sensitivity. So you kind of might assume, even though 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:49.240 this video turns out to be fake, that there could 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.839 be things like that there's some kind of field being 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.280 put out that sucks in all the insects around it. 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.800 But with crazy ants. Uh, that does not appear to 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.720 be the case. But the answer, that answer is still 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.520 quite fascinating, right it is. So there is more than 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.160 one kind of crazy ant. Actually, the kind we're talking 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:12.000 about is Nylandria Fulva, commonly known as the Raspberry crazy 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.600 aunt Raspberry without a P because it's named after a 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.520 guy named Raspberry r A S B E r r Y, 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.680 or also known as the Tawny crazy ant. Maybe we 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.600 can mostly call it Nylanderia Fulva or something, because who 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.520 wants to say raspberry or tawny when you're talking about ants? 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.160 They sound delicious, though, Yeah, this is it a flavor 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:33.200 of ants? Yeah? I think so. It's kind of I'm 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.400 imagining ice cream cone crawling and crazy ants. Well, I'm 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.440 sure there are ice cream cones like that. Another point 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.320 of comparison I should make is that when reading about 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.000 how these ants pile up, you know they're these massive 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.320 volumes of ants. The guy talked about sucking five gallons 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.160 of ants out of his air conditioner with a vacuum cleaner. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.760 The people who have really bad infestations of Nyland Area 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.680 Fulva in Texas and stuff say that the ants will 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.320 sort of like pile up head against the sides of 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.440 their house like snow drifts, and if you don't know 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.679 what you're looking at, it can look like huge piles 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.400 of coffee grounds or something, suggesting there could be a flavor. 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:13.880 It sounds like the zombies and war Zy right where 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:15.960 they're just kind of piling up against the wall. Well, 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.600 that's a that's a kind of interesting thing, the way 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.439 that ants can behave a little bit like the zombies 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:24.240 in the World War Z movie if you haven't seen 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.320 the movie, zombies are getting over a barrier by just 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.360 like piling their bodies up against it and eventually forming 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.640 a staircase made out of other zombies to get to 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.720 the top of the wall. Yeah, they're really just playing 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.720 ant like behavior in that in that in that film, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.280 because I'm instantly reminded of cases that we've talked about 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:45.319 in the past of uh, you know, I believe the 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.400 fire ants in particular forming a raft, Yes, exactly. Yeah, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.400 they'll they'll make a raft for themselves when it floods, 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.199 a raft made out of ants for ants to survive 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.160 a flood. I want to see zombies do that. Maybe 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.240 the zombies have done that in a in a film 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.240 or a TV show I just haven't seen it. It's 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.320 kind of a reminder of the bizarre, deep, almost kind 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.720 of group intelligence that you see in use social insects 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.880 like ants and bees. But anyway, as we were saying, 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.040 there's more than one kind of crazy ant. Crazy ants 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.480 are native to South America, specifically northern Argentina and southern Brazil, 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.480 so picture kind of middle Middle region in South America. 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.880 And they were first discovered in Texas by an exterminator 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.439 named Tom Raspberry in two thousand two, and since then 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.560 they've been spreading throughout the Gulf Coast. They're now in 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:37.920 Louisiana and Florida and Mississippi. And people thought in those 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.640 regions that the red fire ant was pretty bad. They 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.160 thought it was a troubling invasive species. But the crazy 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.640 ant has actually been replacing the red fire ant for 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.360 many years there Now it's also displacing other arthropods like 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.079 spiders and centipedes, which can destabilize the food chain because 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.040 larger predators like birds need to be able to eat 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.760 things like spiders and centipedes. They're not so keen on 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.200 a crazy ants. All right, hold that thought. We're gonna 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:04.720 take a quick break and when we come back, we 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:10.480 will jump back into the swarm of crazy ants. Than alright, 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.240 we're back. So we mentioned that the crazy ants are 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.800 of the genus Nyland area. Um, you might wonder how 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.040 do they get the name crazy ants? Is it because 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.199 they're crazy because they want to get into your TV? 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.520 That doesn't really seem like how a name would come about. 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.400 Apparently they get this name from just descriptions of their 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:31.679 foraging behavior. And if you've never seen what this looks like, 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:33.440 you should go to YouTube and you should look up 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.200 videos of crazy ants foraging because it's it's kind of 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:42.960 hard to describe. It's this frantic, erratic, extremely fast movement. 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.760 Uh to me, crazy ants moving around in a swarm. 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.800 It almost looks like a swarm of gnats zipping around 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.080 in the air, except the movement is confined to a 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.120 flat surface on the ground. Yeah, if you're used to 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:00.880 sing and you know ants embarking on journeys generally like 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.880 a path from one place to another, you look at 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:05.640 this and it just looks like they're just a scramble. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.440 They're just a mess. Yeah, it's just a mindless swarm. Well, 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.040 you think it's a different kind of foraging strategy based 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.160 on different mathematics. Right, when you've got a single line 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.320 between two things, you're maximizing efficiency there, Like the ants 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.040 are not expending any more energy than they need to 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.360 to get from one place to another in order to 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.360 transport goods and seek out new stuff and all that. 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.920 But when you see these these ants moving around, you 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.280 get a very different idea. It's almost as if they're 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.640 going for a different type of investment bet payoff matrix, 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:40.760 Like they're betting more on random movement leading to possible 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.720 discoveries of things leading to potential payoffs in in a 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.560 kind of like cloud type movement. Yeah, they're just scouring 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:50.560 the terrain to see what they can find. Now, I 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:52.960 listened to an interview with a U. T. Austin researcher 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.160 named Dr Edward Lebrun, who is an expert on crazy 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.560 antswer who studies invasive ants in general and um, one 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:02.640 of the things you're saying is that they're very successful 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:07.680 invasive species because they share traits with other successful invasive ants, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.240 one of which is that the crazy ants are what 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:14.120 he calls super colonial, meaning you've got no divisions between 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.800 colonies of the same species. So some other ants might 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:19.960 set up a colony here and then a colony over 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.200 in the neighbor's yard. And if the ants of those 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.680 two colonies come into contact with another, they're going to 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.960 fight it out right, like rival kingdoms exactly. They're in 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.680 competition for the same resources. It's like, you know, you 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.360 and your neighbor fighting over I don't know what you 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.000 would fight over with your neighbor. You found treasure, yeah, 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.080 buried treasure right on the property line, and you say, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.160 I'm getting my sword, that's my treasure. But the crazy 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.000 ants don't necessarily behave that way. Crazy ants from different 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:50.080 colonies apparently treat one another with deference in respect. They 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.720 come across members of another colony, and they treat them 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.760 basically as if they were members of the same colony. So, 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.720 con specifics, members of the same crazy aunt species don't 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.920 tend to antagonize one another. They team up. And from 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.200 that New York Times article I mentioned earlier by Mullum Lebroun, 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:10.040 the researchers says that he believes there's a single super 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.360 colony of crazy ants that occupies quote as many as 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.080 four thousand, two hundred acres in Iowa Colony, which is 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.440 a place in Texas strangely enough, uh, and is spreading 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.120 two hundred meters a year in all directions. It's basically 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.240 just this one giant organism because in many ways a 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.800 colony of ants or a colony of any youth social 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.800 insects kind of does behave like a single organism split 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.520 across multiple bodies. Wow. So yeah, this is they're essentially 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:42.480 the the the Tyrannids from Warhammer forty thousand. There just 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:46.120 this invading superorganism. Well you've mentioned the Tyrannids before, but 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.440 you've got to tell me a little more about him, Robert. Basically, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.720 it's an army of xenomorph inspired sort of biohr is 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:56.440 also very inspired by the the alien antagonists from Starship Troopers, 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.160 so that kind of adversary and the ideas that they 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.880 just come and they just lay waste two entire planets. 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.080 You know, it's funny you should mention Starship Troopers because 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.880 we were just talking about the World War Z kinda 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.840 and aunt. What what World War Z zombies and ants 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.520 have in common is that they'll make mega structures out 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:15.920 of their own bodies to climb over things and stuff. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.280 The bugs in Starship Troopers do the same thing. Yeah, Yeah, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.240 that's right. They did in the film version. Yeah. Oh, 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.560 I don't know if they do in the book. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:26.840 I've I've read the book, but I don't I don't recall. Well, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.280 I think it's time we've got to address this question. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.880 Why do the crazy ants keep invading electronics? Why do 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.280 you find them in the TV and the iron in 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.000 the detector and the all that stuff. Well, part of 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.720 the answer, of course, is based on the way they 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.240 hunt for food and resources. They are simply going to 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.480 come across electronics, right, I mean, they are going to 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.120 find them because that's they're They're just scouring everywhere. They're 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.600 gonna scour your home and they're going to run across 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.760 your various electronic gadgets. Yeah, you're exactly right. I Mean 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.560 one of the things that comes through in the stories 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.920 about crazy and infestations is that that they they become 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.399 so pervasive in everywhere. You know, if you've got an 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.159 infestation in your house, they're gonna be all over the place, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.080 and so they will be scouting out all kinds of things. 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.040 And this actually leads to one thing that Edward Lebrun 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.080 said that I thought was pretty interesting. He didn't use 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.720 these words, but he said essentially that there's got to 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.840 be some selection bias in the characterization of them, mainly 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.760 invading electronics. And his exact quote was quote, when your 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.480 power goes out, you want to know why you find 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.480 a bunch of ants. That's a good reason to get 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.680 your video camera. Which is a very good point about 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.960 the way that we tend to notice things, right, We 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.400 tend to notice something when it's an unusual problem. You're 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.080 much less likely to get the camera out if it's 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.520 you know, not turning off something that you might be 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.200 trying to use. That's right. And then of course the 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.440 reason that that that they wind up in your electronics, 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.159 the reason why it becomes a problem has a lot 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.879 to do with not so much the certainly not the 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.960 electronic components there, but just the case itself. Like if 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.159 if they end up in your computer tower for your 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.400 your PC, it's not because there's a you know, there's 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.760 an active battery in there or anything, right, it's the 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.439 it's it's the tower itself is an ideal container for 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.840 the ants exactly. So crazy ants are different than many 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:24.760 other types of ants. If you've got a group of 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:29.040 red fire ants, Solenopsis invicta, which they've got a great 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.760 Latin name, Solenopsis in victa. They're gonna build a colony, right, 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.040 They're gonna dig, and they're gonna build a mound, and 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.200 they're gonna dig tunnels in the mound. Their their ecosystem engineers, right, 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.000 like we were talking about in the City Evolution episode. 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.919 They build their own ecosystem and then they guard it 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.840 to the death. Crazy ants are different. They don't dig 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:49.800 very much. They dig a little bit and not much. 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.800 They prefer to nest in existing cavities they come across 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:59.120 in the environment. So the insides of boxes containing electronics 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.720 tend to be an eye deal type of enclosed protected 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.440 space that's perfect for them to climb into and form 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.560 a nest inside. Yeah, enclosed spaces with with space in 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:15.240 there and a limited numbers of of entrances and exits, right, 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.160 and very small entrances and exits, so predators, it's gonna 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.000 be hard for them to get in there. When was 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.520 the last time an ant eater got inside your TV? Rightly, 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.359 it's it's true, it's it's it's it's pretty safe from 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.040 less than five times. It's got to be. But also 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.960 Lebron and other experts have pointed out another reason why 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.639 you might tend to find tons of ants and the 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.000 guts of your TV, or tons of crazy ants pouring 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.160 out of a compressor box or something. Lebron says that 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.640 when the crazy ants get agitated, they released something known 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.040 as an alarm pheromone. Now we know that a lot 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.399 of the communication between ants who share a colony is 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.760 pheromone base. They release chemical signals that are distributed through 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.320 the air that can essentially smell messages from one another, 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.439 and the alarm pheromone is a chemical that has a 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.440 smell that alerts conspecific ants to danger or trouble. Now 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.200 you can imagine that this could work several different ways 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.040 in the wild. Right, one way an animal might use 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.439 an alarm pheromone would be to say, Hey, I'm in danger. 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.600 There's something dangerous here, you better stay away. But not 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:19.919 so with the crazy ants. You know, I feel like 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:23.159 this sort of pheromone based behavior you often see this 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.000 pop up in monster movies, is a way to outsmart 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.040 or defeat the adversary. Blade too comes to mind. There's 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.320 the end up like mimicking the pheromones of the reaper 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.679 vampires and you know, directing where they swarm. But I 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.600 feel like it's rarely explored as that the prime motivator. 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:42.639 Is there a monster movie out there where the whole 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:48.080 crazy interspecies conflict comes down to a misunderstanding over alarm pheromone? 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.000 May be interesting. I've never heard of that, but you 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.280 could easily see how, especially given what I'm about to say, 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.600 that that things could get mixed up and go bad. 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:01.159 So another what Lebron says is, actually, it's not the 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.320 way that I just mentioned. It's not that they put 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.880 out an alarm pheromone that says I'm in danger, stay away. 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.320 When you put crazy ants in a vial, he says, 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.600 they get very agitated, and they get mad, they release 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.200 their alarm pheromone. And if you take a vial of 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.720 these really angry agitated ants and you put it next 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.800 to a trail of other crazy ants, instead of avoiding 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.400 the vial, the ants are going to swarm all over it. 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.920 They're actually attracted to the alarm pheromone. And this kind 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:31.560 of makes sense for ants because being used social insects, 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.240 this is how they defend nests. Like if you've got 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.480 a nest and something's in the nest. Attacking the nest, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:39.960 what you want to do is bring all of your 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.560 family members in to fight the attacker off. So basically 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.760 they're there. Their whole way about doing things is if 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.240 you mess with one crazy ant, you're messing with all 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.119 the crazy ants, right, I mean, one crazy ant doesn't 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.679