How Invasive Ants Disrupt Lions’ Hunting Behavior

[@terramater]

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[@oneshothunter9877]

I really like your content. Been a subscriber for years. But. What's up with the annoying background music?

[@terramater]

Hi there, first of all: thanks for your support! 💫 Secondly, we are always thankful for feedback. Can you specify your comment? Would you prefer other type of music? Lower volume?

[@killapicklepiratepanda7373]

Ants are the definition of tiny but mighty

[@terramater]

Hi @killapicklepiratepanda7373! Exactly! 🐜

[@comfortablynumb9342]

Leaf cutter ants process 17% of the rainforest vegetation in South America. I lived with them in Costa Rica and their nests are massive. Tiny but mighty, indeed.

[@terramater]

Awesome that you lived with them! 😍 For how long?

[@comfortablynumb9342]

@@terramater I lived in Costa Rica for 9 years. Leaf cutter ants trashed my garden and killed stuff I planted quite a few times. Once, before I ever moved there, i saw a TV show that was about ants. They poured 18 cement trucks full of concrete into a leaf cutter nest. Then they waited for it to set up for a month or so. They dug it up and it was HUGE. Incredible. It must have been 40 feet deep into the hill. Those are impressive critters.

[@anabanananaa]

Ants are on about every continent other than ANTartica, which is pretty ironic. There’s are about 20 quadrillion ants, which make up 20 percent of all creatures on land. It’s crazy to think they are so sophisticated and smart.

[@Girjon05]

With lions starting to prey on buffalo, their hunting strategies change to be more effective at taking out the large bovids, meaning that during the first years they are going to be more succesful in hunting them. However buffalo aren't stupid, and they will adapt to the new pressure, meaning they will start to learn new strategies to defend themselves. So it's going to be a race between those 2 species to counter eachother

[@leonardowynnwidodo9704]

Similar to the arms race

[@davidegaruti2582]

i mean this is already happening : there are packs of lion specialists , and buffalos that live in those areas exibit very careful and weary behaviors , sometimes even laying in ambush for lions to kill them , they may also follow them to their den to kill the cubs and look forward if an area may have lions ... they coevolved for a long time by now , and they are likely capable of coping ...

[@kewan2045]

Other countries have lions that started eating buffalo long ago without the effects of acacia trees. Those lions typically grow larger and males are more involved in the hunt. Buffalo will use the same defense it’s used for thousands of years.

Nature.

[@anasghaffar7837]

Please make a documentary series on the Amazon Rainforest and the Congo Basin. It's remarkable that we know so little about these beautiful jungles!

[@comfortablynumb9342]

The Osa Península in Costa Rica is fairly small but has 5% of the land biodiversity in the world on it. It's worth a documentary too. And it's not difficult to get to compared to the Amazon or Congo.

[@stevebennett9839]

Its crazy to think of how many different species of animals are on this earth and how they can affect each other like this, another great video.

[@lukestoloff2213]

The lions will likely start growing bigger as well many Buffalo specialist lion populations grow noticeably bigger than lions that have a more varied diet would be pretty cool if the researchers tracked overall lion size over the next few generations

[@Anderson-f4t6c]

Mediterranean 🦁 are coming back baby

[@terramater]

Hi @lukestoloff2213! Thanks for sharing those insights. Do you remember where the lions grow bigger? Was it also in Kenya?

[@Anderson-f4t6c]

There were giant lion 🦁 called barbary lion who went extinct

[@lukestoloff2213]

@@terramaterYes the lions living in the Okavango Delta in Botswana are Buffalo specialists and often grow larger than other lion populations they are said to be the largest wild lions on the planet. They do not exclusively eat Buffalo but they regularly hunt them similar to these lions. Another example of this increased size can be seen in the mapogo lion coalition from mala mala/sabi sands in South Africa. The six male lions became Buffalo specialists after being evicted from their pride allowing them to grow larger than other males in the area thanks to the huge food supply.

[@jevonmcpherson8054]

​@@lukestoloff2213 correlation doesn't mean causation. They could be hunting buffalo because they are larger and thus better at dealing with them. Or something else.

[@elisamf]

I'm watching this video, while observing ants invading my flat. Should I be worried? Will this affect the behavior of my cat? Just kidding, great video!!

[@terramater]

Hi @elisamf! No need to worry, Sissi will always be the queen of the flat! 👸🏻

[@stevebennett9839]

I once saw an ant carry a piece of dry cat food straight up my wall, I couldn't even see the ant until I got close enough. Enough of them little guys enter they're liable to carry your cat away.

[@elisamf]

@@terramater That's true, she's the best!

[@elisamf]

@@stevebennett9839 OMG, if they try this here, they'll be in a BIG TROUBLE.

[@braveshine2579]

fking repeating like 10 mins the whole video without going straight to answer.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

Fascinating, and thanks for showing the research data!!!!!!!

[@capnskurk8679]

Very interesting video well done!

[@forgotten1s]

The title got my attention for sure

[@terramater]

Nice to hear that! Do you like the video?

[@forgotten1s]

​@terramater uuuuuh actually i felt it was a bit surface level and a bit long winded for what the information actually was... The basis was "not enough trees for lions to hide in due to the big headed ants invasion knocking out native ants allowing for elephants to eat the trees. Now lions eat buffalo the end" if you went even deeper then it would of been worth it.

[@michaelp.4890]

​@@forgotten1s "would have been" (Sorry for being pedantic, I couldn't help myself after seeing this mistake so frequently in the comments.)

[@forgotten1s]

@michaelp.4890 youre so wrong it is would have. But also it doesnt matter. There are no rules in human linguistics as humans are the ones who talk and make the rules. As a person who watches informative youtube i doubt you havent watched a linguistics video which would of told you that

[@HumbleShallot]

Wolves to Lions: “well! I see you guys have finally come around to our way of thinking.”

[@guillaumepedenaud9667]

The research work behind thos results must be gigantic, thank you for sharing it ! 😮

[@cjthebeesknees]

Ants are super organisms, super troopers and super predators, kinda like the Tyranids from WH40k Universe.

[@terramater]

Hi @cjclark1208! Ants really rock! 🤘🏼🐜

[@Lyonessi]

Great script, great visuals, great video.

[@SoiBac-or2sq]

Beautiful, very interesting. Very video well done!

[@terramater]

Hi @SoiBac-or2sq! Thanks for watching!

[@Some1-2]

This shows how sensative ecosistes realy are

[@comfortablynumb9342]

I thought this was going to be about fire ants. They're all over the world now too but originally from Brazil I think. A video about leaf cutter ants would be cool. I lived in Costa Rica for 9 years and had plenty of experience with them. They're amazing but I hated it when they ate my garden, usually in one night.

[@BonifacioBasilides]

I'm curious to find out if some wildlife conservations are doing sum about this. This looks like it will have a huge impact long term for these two species

[@pranavnair2616]

Awesome 👌 👏

[@6666Imperator]

so interesting! But at the same time I am wondering if we as humans then should intervene and try to fight the invasive species to help the local ecology/biomes or to let nature do what it has always done and see it as the natural changes which we see in history as well. At what moment is an invasion of a different species just something that happens every now and then and at what point should it be stopped?

[@raysunclimbing]

Beautiful, very interesting

[@WWZenaDo]

Ugh, this is going to have further long-term consequences. Fewer water buffalo may mean fewer and much shallower water holes, which will mean that droughts will take a greater toll upon all large animals, including lions, elephants, giraffe, etc. Does the increase in grasslands areas mean that gazelles and antelope will move in? Cheetahs are their main predators, because lions can't run fast enough to catch those grasslands herbivores - unless the lion prides' increased teamwork helps them survive. Also without elephants, a main source of fertilizer for the mixture of trees, brush and grasses will be gone.

[@DerekRhoads]

Your icon on the right side of the video is very distracting and makes me not want to watch.

[@theneedlewon.]

That's some next level OCD man

[@thewhisperingsylph8738]

Giant Anteaters and Aardvarks should prey on those invasive ants.

[@player9129]

Thus the meaning small things make great Changes - Wise Guy

[@mellon4251]

Mentioning the question once is plenty, no need to do it three or four times in a six minute video. Felt a bit like the recap after a commercial break on TV

[@EyeSeeThruYou]

This is a lesson on the consequences caused by the interference of humans - accidental or intentional. Non-native introductions are destroying global habitats very quickly, downgrading and degrading habitats, resulting in lower and lower habitat functionality. This excellent documentary is illustrative of how destructive introduced species truly are. Thank you for providing this concise, high-quality educational production. 👍

[@priyathammanoharkoka4300]

Intricately connected ecosystems remind me of the butterfly effect ! Gorgeous video

[@terramater]

Thanks @priyathammanoharkoka4300! 🤗 And yes, it also reminds us of the butterfly effect.

[@soumakbinduwildlife]

excellent

[@jed_91]

In 2023 humans found good way to remove big head ants in kenya

[@abdullaalshafai2490]

سبحان الخالق العظيم. كل هذه الأمور التي نشاهدها في الطبيعة معجزات من قدرة خالق العظيم الذي يستحق التامل والعبادة ودليل على عظمة الخالق. سبحان الله العظيم

[@salamandiusbraveheart4183]

Deglobalization can't happen soon enough

[@I.____.....__...__]

Wait, so you're saying that organisms are capable of affecting things on a much larger scale than themselves, for example, something about the size of a human affecting the entire planet? 🤔 Gee, how utterly shocking.

[@AquaticFlapper125]

Ants

[@terramater]

🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

[@terramater]

🐜🐜🐜🐜

[@thebeautifulanimal]

Nature is so fragile😢

[@spikerwave]

Can't we plant more acacia trees?

[@anabanananaa]

They will just get eaten with no ants to defend them.

[@JohnJones-qj8dm]

Commenting at 2,000 views. I predict this video will take off. Very interesting.

[@patrickmaline4258]

so… lions are going to get bigger?😱

[@zes7215]

no such thing as imposix or etc, bigx etc 1uferiox bloat, doesnt matter

[@skybluskyblueify]

Revenge of the dodo?

[@mohsenhadee2414]

The music discourage watching .

[@JosTheMan1]

Wow

[@terramater]

Hi @JosTheMan1! Small but mighty, right? ;) 🐜

[@bozhidarmihaylov]

Awful narration, sorry..

[@renzofamine8741]

First, baby.

[@StonerInMN]

But did you watch the video tho?

[@terramater]

Yay! 🥳 Do you like the new video?

[@terramater]

Hi @StonerInMN! That's a very good question! 👀

[@thebeautifulanimal]

Whats up with being 1st? Watch the hard work the creator have put into the video.

[@renzofamine8741]

Guys, chill. Just let me have this one. And yes, I watched the video, it was very educational.

[@oetyco]

30 second explanation dragged out to 6 minutes

[@terramater]

Want to take the fast line? Read the paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg1464

[@ErikGsson]

Dont listen to people comming from tiktok like this guy, I loved the video ❤

[@slitheringswamp5352]

What's more, all of those 6 minutes were filled with information. It may not have directly spelled out the answer in 30 seconds, but those 6 minutes showed you the process the researchers used to come to their conclusion. And it contained more information about the situation than you would get from a one sentence explanation. You might have even received information that wasn't directly spelled out. Like how invasive species are an important concern for our environments, or how large animals like elephants can impact their habitats through their behavior.