The Horror of the Slaver Ant

The fact that this is the fourth ant-centered video from Kurzgesagt makes me believe that this a cemented tradition for this channel now.

The more I learn about ants, the more I realize how metal their lifestyle is

Fun fact: enslaved ants can ocasonaly rebel and either wipe out the slavers or drastically weaken them, though one way or another the rebels are killed, either from age or from the rebellion failing

bro the queen vs queen battle is crazy, it’s like the exact opposite of how humans do their war, the leaders sit back and chill while the workers (soldiers) fight till death, for these ants it’s like “fuck it i’ll do it myself”

I was sitting outside my high school library, hanging out with a friend, when we observed individuals from two different species of ants cross paths on the concrete in front of us. One was a red ant and the other a black ant, roughly about the same size as each other. They approached one-another, touched feelers for a few seconds, then both turned around and went back the way they came. Within a couple of minutes two very large armies of ants, one black and one red, approached the spot where the scout ants had met. There must have been a couple hundred ants in each group. It was a battle and it lasted a long time until the red ants eventually killed most of the black ants and the black ants retreated. The red ants collected the dead and returned to where they came from. My friend and I couldn't stop talking about it for weeks. It was the wildest thing we had ever seen.

It's amazing that ants quite literally have their own lore

Ants are so inherently social that the concept of an ant queen charging into an enemy nest all on her own messes with my mind!

Okay let's get this over with Ants live in their own apocalypse 1: giant creatures that eat or kill them 2: other horrifying bugs that eat them in creative ways only a mentally insane person could think of 3: a mushroom virus that only infects spiders and ants literally makeing them go through the last of us but the infected commit suicide as the spores burst to spread the infection in the air 4: other ants going to war with other ants 5: ants that have strange abilitys like this one in the video 6: slavery 7: cannibalism 8: the ant death spiral

It’s astonishing for a singular ant to even have the chance of taking over an entire colony

Not gonna lie, the quest of a Polyergus queen to assassinate all the queens in another colony without getting killed herself sounds like a dope premise for a video game or drama miniseries.

Humans: “Slavery is a disgusting human creation and should never have happened” Ants: ”how cute, they always think they’re the only ones or the first at doing everything”

The fact he started with Katara's speech in ant form made my day 😆 "Everything changed when the slaver nation attacked"

As a Polyergus, I found this video to be very informing and I thank you for giving me this knowledge to be able to enslave more colonies. I shall tell my queen about this. She'll be thrilled

I'll never forget being a kid and my dad showing me an ant colony herding and farming aphids on some garden plants. What a wildly complex behavior for creatures that should seemingly be so simple.

Me: drops my snack Every ants within a 35 KM radius:

I may be 6 months late, but 6:05 that is a PIKMIN reference, I love that, and it fits perfectly into the theming of this video, PIKMIN is literally a game in which you order a whole army of ant-like creatures to aid you in combat.

I used to have a colony of copper-colored slaver ants in my yard as a kid. I would watch them for hours, as they'd form a raiding party and travel sometimes a hundred meters to their target colony, then carry the eggs back. This video was a cool reminder, thanks!

that single queen solo raiding a whole colony is the true definition of badassery

Imagine this every ant you unknowingly step was at some point a fierce warrior...

Kid: Grandpa who is your inspiration Grandpa: Its hard to explain