"This is a "secret" society one of the millions spread around the globe." "For millions of years, they transmitting "clandestine" messages and follow invisible trails..." "Only now we are coming to understand them, to crack their secret codes." "Bert Hölldobler studied miniatures cities of ants in his laboratory" "He has dedicated his life to uncover the secret world of these aliens" "and it's certainly true that up-close ants do look alien... they can support one hundred times their own weight... stand up side down..." "on glass... consume vast amounts of food... and run huge distances..." "Each ant it's a strange and alien force but when they cooperate, they become a world superpower." "ANTS Nature's Secret Power" "Somewhere in Central Europe the alien force is on the move." "These wood ants travel orderly pathways in search of food" "Their society numbers hundreds of thousands and like any human city it needs to be constantly supplied with food..." "But how do the ants find the food and organize the transport back to their colony?" "It may appear a confusing blur of activities, each ant doing its own thing but it can't be..." "Somehow the ants coordinate their actions, so that larger insects are over helmed  killed..." "and carried back to the base..." "However they do it, these ants are very successful." "In one year a single colony consumes over ten millions of insects." "In the background here we see one of these fantastic nest of the little mud build wood ants in Europe and it's one of the very important ants in our forest," "because they are really protecting the forests from forest pests." "What's the ants' secret that makes them the most efficient predators on Earth consuming more meat than lions tigers and wolves combined?" "Bert Hölldobler has been asking such questions ever since ants first controvert him as a boy of seven." "His fascination led him to professorships at Harvard University and University of Würzburg in Germany." "Along with American Edward Wilson he has been deciphering the secret world of ants for over sixty years." "The wood ants don't distinguish between professorial previewing and the attack from a wild predator, they respond the same way." "The workers spread formic acid in defense of the nest." "The life of an individual ant is not important, but the survival of the colony is critical." "In a way the colony acts like a super-organism a super-organism that can defend itself all kinds of predators including bears..." "The ant hill contains ten thousand larvae and pupae they are the future for the super-organism." "But before the bear can reaches its goal, it must face the escorting ants." "They will defend the brood with their lives." "The assault of acid up to nose and in the eyes persuades the bear to look elsewhere for a meal." "The scent of honey attracts it to nearby bees nest." "The bear faces a strong defense, here too." "The bees get the better of it." "After smashing open the nest the bear decides to leave." "The exposed bee nest now faces a far fierce enemy than the bear..." "The wood ants have discovered the hive." "Though bigger, bees are no match for ants." "They steal the honey and dismember the larvae." "The adults are carried off with the rest of the plunder, back to the ant city." "The meat is destined for the ant larvae." "The adult ants have a different diet." "Their high energy lives are fueled by honeydew." "This is excreted by aphids and is full of sugars and vitamins." "With this gift the aphids buy the protection of the ants." "The trade is on a grand scale." "And any year the average colony of wood ants will consume one hundred kilos of honeydew." "This mutual relationship has been further refined, here in the rainforest of Indonesia." "The morning rush hour is already on the way The ants are on the clusters of blossoms with their partners this time mini-bugs are sucking the sweet plants juices." "These tropical ants drink the honeydew as their wood ant relatives do." "But they do more these carrying their partners to new parts of the plant where the sap is sweeter." "just as humans herd their domestic animal to new pastures." "The ants are nomads, moving with their domesticated mini-bugs, from plant to plant always looking for fresh foliage for their stock." "Only ants and humans keep domestic animals." "And these ants in Indonesia are the finest example of animal shepherds, guarding and tending their flocks." "The ants even carry their flock under larger leaves, when they sense the approaching storm." "How the ants detect rain long before it arrives, is a mystery." "But they do." "As soon as the storm obsides, the ants are back at work moving their herd." "they take greatest care of the large black mini-bugs," "These are the mothers and are carried on the ants heads." "smaller mini-bugs are gripped by the ants jaws and all the domestic animals returned to grasses." "This is a win-win situation:" "the mini-bugs gain the better pastures and the ants, are the guaranteed supply of sugar rich food." "And ants have evolved other mutually beneficial relationships..." "These are rare Carnivorous plants in Borneo..." "Some of their leaves have modified into flasks, each pitcher containing a fluid below a slippery road." "They are a death trap for insects." "The fluid digests the unfortunate insects to pool in." "The nutrients from the corpses will promote the plant growth." "The scent of nectar attracts the victims, like this giant carpenter ant." "But it is not the only ant." "Tiny Camponotus ants actually live in the stems of the carnivorous plant." "while the giant ant is a visitor." "These tiny ants have an intimate relationship with the plant..." "The ring of the flask is one of the slickest surfaces in nature and only these Camponotus ants can crawl around it." "The giant ant doesn't have the small ants marvelous powers of adhesion." "It is in real danger." "There is no way out from the death trap." "The giant ant will slowly got tired and then drown." "The small ant now sets to work." "Unlike the giant ant, in fact uniquely amongst ants, they can swim under water" "More then that, they can survive in the flask fluid that is slowly digesting the giant ant." "The little ants use their unique talents to feast on the plants victims." "In return for their free food and lodgings the ants defend the carnivorous plant from attack by herbivores." "How good are ants at gripping smooth surfaces?" "To answer that, scientists in the Würzburg laboratory have deviced an ingenious experiment..." "These weaver ants are tested in a centrifuge, a miniature version of what training astronauts endure." "Even it has one hundred times the force of gravity, enough to crush a human astronaut, the ants can still grip the glass surface." "The secret is a microscopic film of liquid on their feet." "And weaver ants need all the grip they can get, when they construct their colonies..." "Individuals hold on with jaws and feet putting their bodies on a great tension while their fellow workers glue the leaves together..." "How did these extraordinary insects come about?" "They evolved from wasps, more than one hundred million years ago, some species still retain primitive traits..." "For instance these Australian bulldog ants, have retained the sting of wasp ancestors." "Unlike most other ants these workers are almost as large as the queen... and they still lay eggs..." "However the eggs are not fertile and are used as food for larvae." "It is only the queen that produces the next generation." "but in an other species this time on the Ponerinae ants there is a different arrangement:" "here there is no class system." "When a queen dies several workers become fertile in their place, which ant will take over the ants fight for the privilege" "The battle takes the form of a "jawst"" "a ritualized clash of antennae and jaws to decide which ant will dominate." "But Ponerinae ants are unusual in their open conflict." "Typically ants work together for the benefit of the community the ant state." "There are thousands of species of ants." "They are a very successful group of insects and this success lies not in the abilities or strength of individuals but in the organization of their societies." "There is an immense diversity in this insect group but there is one common feature to all ants' species:" "all live in society and all are social insects." "There no a single ant species known that lives solitarily." "Well the evolutionary transition from a solitary life to a social life occurred only in about 3-5 % of all animal species including our own species Homo Sapiens." "But this minority lies an over helming dominant role in almost all land-habitats." "Grass-cutter ants are the most complex of all ants states or super-organisms." "This is a highly coordinated army, stretching out to feed." "They are so well organized in gathering food that they threatening the gauchos cattle on the pampas of Argentina" "The grass-cutter ants live in huge subterranean cities the bear roots of which stand proud at the grassy plains and are used as landmarks" "The pampas is home to millions of cattle and billions of ants." "But the Gauchos fear the ants not for their numbers but their organization;" "the ants are so efficient foragers that they compete with the cattle." "How do they do it?" "It's a matter of specialization, cooperation and communication" "The first specialists are the cutters they have powerful jaws and big heads that have strong muscles their only job is to cut through the tough grass leaves." "If a grass stem is too thick, then teamwork is the answer." "The cutters also measure the length of the cut sections." "They mustn't be too big, to be carried down to the ground." "Here, transport ants take over." "They have a lighter build than the cutters, more the physique of a runner than a lumberjack." "They carry the stems from 15 meters and deposit them at a depot, for the next relay of transport ants." "In this unique fashion the highly coordinated field team brings in a harvest along well traded pads that radiate out from their base as far as three hundred meters" "Nearly half a tone of grass is gathered each year and brought to the underground city." "How the ants achieve such productivity?" "The first thing we do is studding these wonderful creatures in their natural habitat and then we take a system here in the laboratory as we can see here the leaf-cutting ants living into tropics, in South America we brought them in, we let them foraging here," "and now we have the system on a controlled situation, and we can now use a high-tech approach to study their behavior, their neurobiology, their communications and their mechanisms." "First problem:" "How do the ants harvest the leaves so efficiently?" "The ants are given not leaves but discs paraffin wax." "This provides a consistent workload." "The scientists measures the ants metabolic rate whilst it is cutting." "It turns out to be three times higher than that of an exercising athlete." "Leaves cutting is a very hard work." "And after workout with the wax disks, is time for the treadmill..." "This simulates a typical journey, back to the colony, and the ants hardly break sweat." "These ingenious experiments show that the leaf-cutter ants" "balances the high cost of cutting leaves with their super-efficient running style." "This tiny super-athletes are true rulers of the Pampas." "But the power of individual ants is only a part of the story" "How do they organize themselves?" "The answer can be seen whenever a community of ants is disturbed." "These ants have had their colony destroyed." "They are rattan ants and live inside the stems of a climbing palm." "The first priority is to protect the future of the colony, larvae and pupae." "Some of the workers shield the grabs from fierce tropical sun." "whilst others begin to move them into the shade." "Once the larvae are safe, the ants must find looking a new convening home" "How do the workers coordinate their actions?" "Is there a big boss that directs them?" "The scout ants spread in all directions..." "As they go, they touch the ground with their bodies leaving down a broken line of scent." "Whilst some ants begin the laborious task of transporting the brood, the scouts are still searching everywhere." "Scouts that find a nest site laid more scent and other ants follow that trails." "They intent lay scent and so one site is selected from many by a chemical democracy." "There is no leader giving orders." "The site is chosen by the community through the strength of the chemical trails of the scouts." "The brood are carried to the new nest site along the invisible line of scent." "The destruction of the nest has forced the winged reproductive ants, out into daylight." "Their instinct, is to fly but it is too soon." "The workers hold them down, as they guide them." "These large reproductive ants are the future." "They must be stopped flying until the time is right." "A typical rattan-ants society is made of about ten thousand individuals." "The workers have an extraordinary individual strength." "But it will still take the ants two days to move to their new home." "It's the chemical communication system that selected the site and guided the ants." "This organizing process is both simple and powerful." "Without any need of bosses, these workers efficiently found a new place to live." "Chemical communication is one of the most important key to the success of these aliens." "In most species of ants, the queen too, uses chemicals to advertise their fertility." "But she controls the sex of their offspring in a different manner:" "fertilized eggs become females, workers and queens, unfertilized ones, males," "His only role is to mate to the queen..." "The males have a very short life but they can become fathers even 20 years after they died because the sperm is stored in the female's body, in a sperm pocket." "In a way the ants discovered the sperm banks, millions of years ago." "This sperm is preserved in the female sperm pocket for 10-20 years and in some species, even longer." "Of course, in most ant societies ants are not just males and females." "There is a division of labor amongst the female workers and this can be seen in their physique." "These are all leaf-cutting ants..." "The smallest, work inside the giant city as gardeners the middle-size ones, are the transporters, and the biggest, are the workers, the slicers through the leaves." "The scent of the giant queen is spread through out the colony." "It tells the workers about the health of their queen." "As long as the royal perfume is strong, the workers stay infertile and don't produce their own eggs." "Chemical signals control much of the life of ants state including the timing of flight of the winged reproductive adults." "The emergence of the city state is very unpredictable." "This is a rare footage, shot by biologists, 25 years ago, of leaf-cutting males and females emerging." "The males appears first, they are just really flying sperm machines the females emerge after the males." "These are virgin queens." "They are bigger than the males because they carry a large store of fat." "that they will need when they will found their own flagellant society." "The males, normally take to the wings first the females follow and maybe their flight is triggered by a chemical command released by the males." "It's another puzzle still to be solved." "The mating takes place on the wing a single female mates with three or more males." "The males job is done and they die after the mating flight." "The females return to earth quickly shade their wings and set about founding a new city state." "The new queen fertilizes her eggs with the sperm she is stored." "She labors alone living on her reserves of fat until her first workers emerge and she has others, to get her food." "In winter, grass-cutter ants also climb trees." "they can be quick to exploit new opportunities." "The giant cutters slices through whole leaves." "The ants let the leaves fall to the ground." "It would be too inefficient to climb all the way down with the leave." "So occasionally, even a super-ant makes a mistake!" "There are other ants waiting below." "They cut off the large leaves preparing consignments for the transporters." "This is a depot where the cargos are loaded." "The transporters use the chemical highways." "The better the food the more transporters and the greater the scent they deposit." "This draws more transporters to help at the work." "The system it's self organizing." "But the chemicals are not the only means of communication." "The Würzburg research team wanted to discover how leafcutter ants recruited helpers to high quality food." "The red light of a laser measuring the high-frequency vibration of the leaf." "The leaf-cutting is producing a high frequency a song with its abdomen." "The sound is carried to the leaf through the ants head" "Ants only sing when food is of a high quality." "Others leaf-cutting ants perceive the vibration through their legs." "In this way, leaf-cutting can recruit extra-workers from up to a meter away to help harvest high-quality leaves." "Is there anything that could stop these aliens in their secret communication systems?" "Well, there is one destructive force..." "The fire burns up the old grass and helps fertilize the ground for next season's fresh shots." "This improves the grazing for the cattle." "The ants ignore the flames." "Individuals have no defense against fire." "Like preprogrammed aliens, they continue their tasks, until they boil inside." "The flames consume the grass and destroy the chemical trails." "Chaos ensues." "The organization collapses." "without the guidance of the scent trail, the transporters run in every direction." "But the state is not beaten." "The transporters start again to lay down scent and slowly, the invisible chemical highways, are rebuilt." "Chemicals are the commands in the secret communications system of ants" "Ants are the masters in animal communication." "Their whole life depends on communication without communication no cooperation would be possible." "So, many pioneering discoveries were made first studying ants." "which are the chemical communication." "Bert Hölldobler and his colleagues are deciphering the ants' chemical language." "The metal tube on the left, lofts scent to the ant." "The scientists measured the ant reaction by the movements of the floating ball." "As the direction of the air born chemicals changes, the ant changes its direction." "The chemical is a command..." "Do this ..." "do that... and the ant responds automatically." "The strength of the command depends on the quantity of the chemical." "This scout ant is laying down a broken trail of scent, it's looking for food." "When it finds a source, like this giant drop of sugar water, it drink as much as it can, not for itself, but for it's nest mates." "The sugar water is stored in the ant's social stomach." "On the return journey, the ant leaves a continuous line of scent." "The trail includes this bridge where the ant automatically weights itself and reveals how much sugar water it is consumed." "On it's return, the scout recruits other ants by giving them a taste of sugar from it's social stomach." "They set off the chemical trail and add to it's potency, as they go." "In this way the attractiveness of the trail is directly related to the richness of the food." "Ants don't always depend on their chemical language." "These Diacamma ants keep in physical contact with each other, as they move nest." "so is not to lose their way." "But even here, the ants still obey chemical use." "They follow any object that has the scent of their society." "The ant appears aliens to us because their world seems tide up with scent with invisible chemicals so different from our visual world..." "And the chemicals are not only those produced by ants themselves" "The smell of fresh tree resin is irresistible to wood ants." "In their attempt to harvest the resin, many ants are trapped This scene has happened many times over millions of years..." "Much of what we know about the evolution of ants, comes from this fact:" "...the victims are preserved perfectly as the resin becomes amber." "But why do the ants visit this death trap?" "The wood ants are after the dried resin." "They spend a great deal of energy gathering the resin and dragging it back, to their colony." "This is the equivalent of a human carrying over ten times their own weight, while is running a marathon." "And there's nothing convenient about the size of the resin blocks" "But why do the ants all this effort?" "The lumps of resins are distributed all over the surface of the colony." "The resin is the trees defense against injuries." "It contains chemicals that kill fungus and bacteria" "Every time an ant walks over the block, it disinfects itself." "In this remarkable way, the wood ants using the medicinal properties of the tree, to keep their society, healthy." "The grass-cutter ants also need to control undesirable bacteria." "They live from a fungus they grow themselves." "The grass and leaves are the compost for their fungus gardens." "They control the spread of unwanted bacteria that may destroy their gardens by antibiotics that they manufactures in their own bodies, each in every pieces of vegetation that arrives, is treated with antibiotics." "The whole society, the super-organism depends on the disease-free garden." "There are parts of the super-organism that never leave the underground gardens." "These ants are much smaller than the grass-cutter and transport ants and their job is to weed the gardens and tend the brood." "If the fungus gardens are to thrive, they need the right growing conditions." "The correct temperature and humidity are critical." "These chimneys help the circulation of fresh air." "They are the ventilation dots of an air conditioning system that keeps temperature, humidity and gases, at ideal levels, in the fungus gardens deep below." "The gardens produce huge amounts of carbon dioxide." "The deadly gas exits these chimneys as a stream of warm air." "Scientific colleagues of Bert Hölldobler are investigating how the ants have build their air conditioning system." "How have the members of this society, created their own climate." "In what way does this super-organism works to build its city state." "What lies beneath of the vast roof of the colony?" "The scientists first job is to measure the flow and composition of the air in the plumbing system." "But the ants feel that the community is threatened and retaliate." "This machine samples the air and works out of which chimney does what." "That is when the ants allowed sabotaging the experiment." "with great patience the scientists marked each vent." "The yellow flags indicate chimneys that expels carbon dioxide." "The red ones, the implode of fresh air." "Even from the surface the system appears complex, but to understand it fully, the scientists need to dig into the colony itself, to discover where the docs lead and what is driven the circulation of air." "They find that the grass-cutter ants have special chambers, where they dispose their garden rubbish." "these rubber sheets are important to keep the underground city tidy." "but the dark rubbish material, also help thrive the ventilation system." "The temperature difference between the rubbish and garden creates a flow of air, forcing carbon dioxide loading air upwards and sucking the fresh air from above." "The next stage in the investigation was to find out what one of these subterranean cities look like." "The amount of cement required is extraordinary." "For three days, they kept pouring until ten tons of cement have disappeared down the tubes." "After a month, they begin the excavation led by Professor Louise Fortie." "It takes weeks to uncover the secret megalopolis of the ants." "With the help of mechanical diggers, scientists removed tons of earth at last they begin to see the structure of the city-state." "There are subterranean highways connecting the main chambers and off the main routes, are side roads" "The roads branch and lead to many fungus gardens and rubbish pits." "The tunnels are designed to ensure good ventilation and provide the shortest transport routes." "Everything looks like it has been designed by an architect a single mind..." "But of course that isn't true this colossal and complex city was created by the collective will of the ant colony." "the super-organism." "The structure covers 50 square meters and goes eight meters into the earth." "In its construction, the colony moved 40 tons of soil." "Billions of ant-loads of soil were brought to the surface" "and in human terms, was carried a kilometer to the surface." "It is the equivalent of building the Great Wall of China." "It is truly, a wonder of world" "But ants cities don't have to be big, to be successful." "Here, in this acorn" "I have another entire mature colony of an ant species." "They don't produce thousands of reproductive every year, they produce perhaps 20 or 50 or 100... they reproduces no more..." "The colony itself is not larger then about 100 workers and a queen, but it is a mature colony making their living in this particular acorn." "Ants are remarkable aliens, in many ways..." "This weaver-ant can walk up side down on a sheet of glass it can withstand hurricane force winds and any ant will embarrass Olympic weight lifters" "Holding on to a glass sealing the ant carries 100 times its own weight." "This is a world beating performance" "Any vertebrate, like ourselves, would be ripped apart by the force." "Ants are tough." "But it is their societies that make ants truly unbeatable." "Some are gardeners or farmers forming alliances with plants and fungi others keep domestic flocks of aphids and mini-bugs..." "The secret of ants societies is their cooperation a cooperation based on invisible lines of chemical communication." "This organizing principle can control millions of individuals so they act as a super-organism" "It is the authority of society of the ants state that makes these tiny aliens natures true world power." "Subtitled by bineee for mvgroup.org using the frames (a bit resynchronized) of the Spanish subtitle of Charpa."