0:00 we often think that we know everything about our planet but we can't even imagine the diverse creatures living next to us some of them could easily replace humans if they were a little luckier besides their primary brain they have eight smaller brains in different body parts and these additional brains make decisions on their own and under our feet there may be a whole civilization that outnumbers Humanity by six orders of magnitude that is 1 and A2 million times more than us they have a clear hierarchy professions and career ladders but at the same time a simple infection can literally turn them into zombies is this something out of post-apocalyptic
0:47 science fiction and these cute flying creatures are some of the most fierce and successful Predators on Earth their hunting efficiency is almost impeccable nothing can save you from the attack of these nearly perfect killers in this video we will visit the Museum of terrestrial life whether you are a science Enthusiast a nature lover or simply curious about the world around you the Museum of terrestrial life is an excellent place to visit and deepen your understanding of the incredible diversity of life on Earth the Museum of terrestrial [Music]
1:32 life imagine a creature that has three hearts pumping Blue Blood through the vessels although it has an almost amorphous body resembling a bag of water it can easily open a bottle even a baby proofed one it can feel light and even taste with its skin it has no ears but it hears well even in the infrar rain it can constantly change color and texture becoming indistinguishable from the environment even though it doesn't identify colors at all and sees the world in black and white it's venomous and can be hostile but at the same time it's curious and
2:19 even playful on top of that it's highly intelligent and can solve non-trivial problems in addition to the main brain it has eight smaller brains in different parts of the body and these additional brains make their own decisions who is this monster does it come from Earth yes you got that right it's an octopus and of course it comes from our planet although some scientists entertain another idea but first things [Music] first The Mystery of the [Music] octopus we are certainly used to Modern
3:06 octopuses or octopi everyone has known these creatures since childhood and this somewhat reduces our perceptual accuity seeing these shots many feel surprised but hardly anyone feels excitement or Delight even though the metamorphosis of the X-Men superheroes aren't that different but for some reason we perceive what we see in movies as something extraordinary and yet we can't recognize that similar things that happen in nature can be no less extraordinary isn't it time to revisit how we see these creatures moreover octopi are much more interesting than many people think octopi belong to the class of
3:53 spilop pods which is very ancient and was formed about 530 million years ago at that time there was hardly anything resembling fish not to mention reptiles or mammals the early ancestor of the octopus was quite small had a protective shell and crawled along the ocean floor unfortunately having a protective shell makes species evolve very slowly for example turtles have stayed virtually unchanged for millions of years but about 140 million years ago something went wrong and these creatures evolved to be shelless with a soft and defenseless body and no camouflage clumsy octopus
4:40 ancestors had very slim chances of survival this was the moment of truth either seapods became easy prey for predators and completely die out or start developing faster and more creatively as you can see the seapods decided to fight for life and radically rebuilt their anatomy and what they did turned out to be incredibly efficient and completely outside the box firstly the octopi turn their soft and almost amorphous body into a strength not a weakness since the octopus is almost no firm parts except for the beak it can crawl into any hole if it's at least a millimeter wider than its eyeball or
5:28 beak this allows the octopus to hide in very narrow crevices which is a powerful evolutionary Advantage for escaping large Predators such as sharks or Dolphins second octopi have evolved an even smarter way of staying unnoticed in fact they're one of the best animals on the planet to disguise themselves notice how quickly and unexpectedly it changes color and not only color but also texture that is patterns and not only texture but also their body surface configuration changes occur instantly or in stages as the octopus merges with the environment the animal instantly becomes indistinguishable from a group of algae
6:14 Coral sand stone or anything else we've seen this only in Sci-Fi movies but at the same time here it is what is this guy doing does it follow any laws of nature at all and how is this even possible yes it's really hard to understand seapod camouflage relies on a system of extremely complex tissues chromatophores are scattered throughout the octopus's skin these are tiny sacks filled with pigment they densely cover the skin like freckles the chromatophores can have black red or yellow pigment the Sachs are surrounded by radial muscles that
7:01 can stretch the container thereby revealing the pigment color depending on which sets of chromatophores the octopus opens or closes it can create Stripes spots and design entire patterns instantly becoming indistinguishable from nearby objects or the background you might think hm black red and yellow but what about other colors for this the octopus uses a whole different mechanism which is even cooler there's a whole layer of Highly unusual thin cells that grow in a kind of stacks in the octopus's transparent skin these are idof fores which are located directly below the chromator layer and unlike chromatophores they
7:49 don't contain pigment but rather special proteins called reflectin their unique property is being able to reflect only certain light wavelengths it is thanks to iridophores that the octopus can turn into unreal shades of metallic blue and green but that's not all under the aridor layer there's another layer with other natural reflectors called lucor they reflect the entire Spectrum thereby creating a white color by combining Reflections from iridophores and lucor with the correct pattern of chromat metaphors an octopus can quite convincingly recreate its surroundings but even that's not all of
8:37 it the octopus's camouflage Arsenal has a real combo that virtually allows it to disappear from sight altogether its skin has another structure a network of pilli that can change the skin texture creating rising and falling ridges and MPS so the octopus imitates not only the color and pattern of the surrounding ings but even the surface configuration do you spot an octopus here I don't see it either nobody does and yet it's in front of us with all these tools the soft body shelless octopus has been fooling Oceanic Predators for millions of years but octopi rely on more than just
9:25 their camouflage to survive the way they manage their body is in even more effective survival tool when octopi travel across the sea floor they have to constantly register the background to change their camouflage accordingly they are lightning fast at making decisions observations have shown that an octopus can change its camouflage 177 times an hour and the octopus's camouflage reaction speed is up to 200 milliseconds which is faster than that of any other animal to put this in perspective it takes about 20 seconds for a chameleon to completely change its color considering how fast the octopus
10:11 reacts to its surroundings and the accuracy of reproducing colors patterns and shapes one naturally comes to wonder whether this guy has amazing eyesight how does it manage to see so well and distinguish colors so accurately with a pair of regular eyes and here comes an even bigger surprise the octopus generally can't distinguish colors with its eyes at all it's completely colorblind oh my God what how is this possible how can it reproduce the colors that it can't even accurately see just recently scientists started to research this question detailed studies conducted in 2015 showed some convincing
10:58 results researchers discovered that octopus skin is sensitive to light due to photo receptor genes in the skin even when the skin is separated from the body it can react to light and change the shape of chromatophores scientists have realized that an octopus can see not only with its eyes but also with its skin one can only wonder how the sense of sight is processed by the octopus's brain and Consciousness hold on did I just say octopus Consciousness did I say it out loud well I'll have to explain what I mean moreover this is perhaps the most amazing thing about octopuses even cooler than their camouflaging
11:45 talents but first let's start with their nervous system we take for granted our centralized hierarchical nervous system however the octopus convincingly proves that everything can be completely different imagine that in addition to the contents of the skull each of your arms and legs has a brain of its own and these four brains are totally independent of the central nervous system and can make their own decisions feet go wherever they please hands grab whatever they want for real they literally do whatever they please can you imagine what it is like to think with five brains how will the most diver impulses be managed within
12:31 such a complex physiological structure what part will be responsible for your Consciousness maybe there are five personalities living in such an organism at once it makes for a good Hollywood movie but the reality is much more thrilling than any movie we somehow can get used to the fact that an octopus has three hearts there's one major heart that pumps blood throughout the whole body the other two are specialized to pump blood only through the gills but how do you like the fact that each of its tentacles also has a separate mini brain and this is no exaggeration these nerve clusters can make decisions completely independently if you cut off the poor
13:17 fellow's tentacle it will continue to react to the environment run away from threats and try to grab potential prey the octopus's nervous system isn't concentrated in the brain which which serves as a centralized organ of analysis and control their skeleton body can bend anywhere and in any direction such flexibility calls for equally complex and flexible control in the process of evolution octopuses have learned to delegate Authority by literally Outsourcing local problems to their own limbs for example when a person opens a jar their brain focuses on what the sense organs feel and gives a appropriate signals to the hand muscles squeeze the jar with a
14:03 certain Force make some movement take a stable position and many more fine motor commands all these instructions come from the center but it's enough for the octopus to trigger the desired behavioral response by saying tentacle number five open the jar it's not my problem how you do it I'll be here waiting thinking limbs independently manage complex ulations and Transformations receiving only General instructions from the central part by the way there is every reason to believe that the octopus changes the surface pattern consciously and not just reflexively or adaptively this might seem like total science fiction I know but there is direct evidence that the
14:49 seapod can mimic dozens of both living and non-living objects that make up its ecological habitat for example when observing an octopus in its natural environment people sometimes confuse it with a stingray a kodm brittle and even a jellyfish the octopus often does this without actually needing camouflage but just for fun this amazing nervous system structure raises a whole set of other questions what is it like to be a creature with nine brains what could such a personality be like and what would octopi evolve into in another hundred or 2 million years if a furless two-legged monkey doesn't
15:34 completely ruin this planet in all this time will it have some absolutely real Consciousness even based on very little data available we can confidently assert octopus's outstanding mental abilities for example it's known for certain that octopi easily recognize human faces previously was believed that only primates dolphins and some corvids such as magpies and crows can do this octopi get used to the person caring for them very quickly and can really distinguish their owner from other people there are many curious cases when an octopus recognized people whom they didn't like and swam away from the aquarium wall it also changed the color
16:21 to signify aggression and irritation and vice versa if the octopus liked somebody it' move closer to the wall of the fish tank and didn't show any signs of hostility for example the octopus is smart enough to easily open a bottle of pills with a special baby proof cap moreover it can break free if it is locked inside the jar with a screw cap the octopus has enough intelligence and tentacle strength for this another essential marker of octopus intelligence can be observed during play when an animal is intelligent enough it starts to entertain itself whenever it feels safe and bored when hunger doesn't make it look for food and predators don't pursue it what is left to do is
17:07 either sleep or kill time doing something meaningless that has no evolutionary Advantage whatsoever H sounds too close to home doesn't it but whatever one time experimenters placed an octopus in an empty aquarium where there was only one secluded place to hide there were no more attra actions after some time they threw a plastic jar into the tank it floated on the water surface in the Stream created by the compressor at first the octopus simply ignored it but then it began to shoot a jet of water at the jar throwing it back out of boredom the jar came back Downstream and everything and the whole thing was repeated dozens of
17:53 times this is such a simple entertainment that absolutely all octopuses came up with in the course of the the experiment here just keep in mind we're talking about a seapod not about a dog or a cat but a pile of goo damn it and so no one can come to some unexpected conclusions the fact is that until now playing Behavior has been considered an exclusively social phenomenon while playing animals learn to communicate Dominate and Obey but the octopus is an absolutely self-sufficient animal with no hierarchy in social behavior this makes scientists reconsider the established ideas about the nature of intelligence previously it was believed
18:39 that it was social ties and communication that at one point drove the intelligence in vertebrates to develop but in this regard the octopus easily went against the system scientists can make many unexpected discoveries when it comes to studying this extraordinary creature what complicates things even further is that it's really difficult to observe an octopus in its natural environment as it prefers Solitude and setting up experiments in a laboratory on collected individuals isn't that simple therefore it's hard to imagine what else the strange creature is capable of there is another fundamental Oddity in all of this the octopus has managed to go through an evolutionary path that spanned hundreds of millions
19:25 of years it survived terrible dis disasters that wiped out dinosaurs iosaur and many other animals this raises the question of the very origin of octopi we love to brag about how different we are from other primates but if you look at the octopus at how it differs from its relatives human achievements don't seem to be that impressive after all our evolutionary branches with seapods diverg so long ago that we became completely different in terms of anatomy and physiology the flatworm that was our last common ancestor roam the seafloor 750 million years
20:11 ago after that Evolution took us in different directions this happened 350 million years before the first tetrapods appeared which gave rise to all amphibians reptiles birds and mammals 500 million years before the dinosaurs appeared [Music] but what if it really wasn't like that what if the octopus really came from another planet an international team of scientists led by Australian immunologist Edward steel of the center of astrobiology in Sri Lanka suggested that extraterrestrial retroviruses facilitated Evolution on Earth and some spilop pods even came to our planet in a readymade form carried by comets
20:59 the hypothesis is controversial but the article was published in the peer-review journal progress in biophysics and molecular biology there's nothing unscientific in the very idea of terrestrial Life coming from near or deep space the pan peria hypothesis is not only recognized but is actually well grounded Organics are found anywhere in comets in interstellar clouds even in the deadly Venus atmosphere but Edward Steel's team went much further than the pans peria hypothesis in their new paper scientists admit that octopi could not have appeared as a result of terrestrial Evolution researchers consider the
21:46 genetic and behavioral diversity of modern spilop pods such as squid cuttlefish and octopi to be extremely unusual at the same time complex anatomical featur such as a nervous system with a large Brain highly unusual chambered eyes and lightning fast camouflaging all appeared within a relatively short period of time the octopus genome has 33,000 protein coating genes which is more than in humans some genetic features contrast sharply with those of other seapods Steel's group believes that such genetic features couldn't have emerged through random mutations that is these
22:31 genes are of cosmic origin researchers think it's plausible that Frozen octopus eggs came to Earth with the Comets of course the theory has been mercilessly criticized and ridiculed according to science alert although this work is interesting it's highly speculative editor Dennis Noble suggests that the article was published only to rekindle the debate of the origin of life and and evolution as there we find more and more evidence of organic matter on other celestial bodies wherever octopi actually originated in many ways they represent an alternative course of evolution and they had plenty of opportunities even to build their own
23:17 kind of civilization the oceans certainly provide a lot of such opportunities underwater volcanoes Tides Sun waves and wind can serve as energy sources oil gas as well as nickel manganese and Cobalt deposits are hidden at the ocean bottom even more metals can be extracted from seawater for example one needs to filter only 50,000 cubic M of water to obtain a kilogram of iron thanks to the diversity of marine life one can easily develop biotechnological Solutions Solutions including bioluminescent lighting based on deep sea organisms and coral-based
24:06 construction the water electrolysis makes it possible to obtain oxygen and hydrogen and these are fuel components that would make it possible to start jet repulsion first in water and then in the atmosphere and near space so why did octopi choose to remain animals albeit very intelligent ones if they had an immense potential for developing intelligence and even building some kind of civilization over millions of years why are we the Pinnacle of creation and not them the reason doesn't lie in the lack of intelligence ironically their strengths have become their weaknesses for example some of their anatomic features so the
24:52 blood of seapods uses hemocyanin which doesn't contain iron like our hemoglobin but copper that's why it's blue such blood is less efficient in delivering oxygen so octopi simply lack it for many complex tasks their social self-sufficiency and solitary lifestyle played a cruel joke on octopi living not in packs they don't pass on experience from one generation to the next the octopus's lifespan rarely exceeds 5 years with an average of 1 to 3 years each generation has to start learning about the world from scratch were it not for these factors
25:38 spilop pods and their relatives could have been impressively sensient and one day the two-legged Kings of the land that is us would confront the civilization of the eight-legged Kings of the sea alternatively the two could build the greatest inter civilization Alliance ever however it's never too late most likely we are looking for our intellectual equals in the wrong place our planet doesn't provide a lot of opportunities for developing a marine civilization compared to Ocean planets even though water covers over 70% of our planet's surface it accounts for only about 0.05% of its mass on a planetary scale all the depths
26:25 of terrestrial oceans are a thin film on a huge stone block with a molten core meanwhile we find great oceans Even in our solar system such as on Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus and that's not to mention the distant exoplanets some of them are billions of years older than the Earth and the Sun it's hard even to imagine what kind of marvelous civilization could develop with such an impressive Head Start but thanks to octopi we can at least remotely imagine what these fantastic creatures might look like
27:16 [Music] [Music] imagine a civilization that outnumbers Humanity by six orders of magnitude by 1 and A2 million times and it's not some bacteria these creatures have created a fully functional social order they have a clear hierarchy professions and career ladders they along past the hunting and Gathering stage and successfully transition to Agriculture and animal
28:02 husbandry they teach the youth take care of the elderly and the disabled and bury their dead they can even reproduce by cloning they've easily outlived every single species that prevailed on their planet in the last 100 million years but at the same time a simple infection can turn them into real zombies does it seem like some post-apocalyptic science fiction to you and yet it's not it's all about ants in this video you'll find out how many ants there are on Earth how much they weigh when they emerged how they
28:47 live how they practice agriculture why their society resembles human civilization and much more that will surprise and even shock you ants we've all seen ants and may have a vague idea of how many ants there are on the planet but few people are even approximately close in their estimation because the real numbers are somewhat
29:36 mindblowing today there are 14,21 18 species of ants alone and this is not considering the additional 1,758 subspecies nobody really knows the total number of these creatures most commonly the ant population is estimated to be at about 10 quadrillions that is 10,000 trillion individuals yes I know it's hard to wrap your head around this figure in total this giant biomass weighs approximately tens of billions of kilograms what's interesting is that this figure exceeds the total weight of humanity as far back as 2, years
30:24 ago ants inhabit all corners of the planet and in all continents except Antarctica they emerged about 110 to 130 million years ago probably in the laurasia supercontinent historically they come from ancient wasps but scientist haven't yet identified any specific wasp species as their ancestors and despite ant's close resemblance to termites the two shouldn't be confused termites aren't even related to them and are closer to cockroaches based on their family tree ants can vary in size by an order of magnitude the smallest is about 2 mm
31:11 long and the largest species can reach several cenm the largest fossil ants in history belong to the genus Forum their females reach 7 cm long with a wingspan of up to 15 cm yes ants have wings and we aren't talking about different species in general all ants belong to the hopter order which might give it away as Tera means a wing in LA but for the most part only females and males have wings and worker ants are wingless hold on what does it mean that workers are neither females nor more
31:59 males that's not a mistake as we deliberately distinguish between worker ants males and females in fact worker ants are technically females but they have an underdeveloped reproductive system which effectively renders them asexual how do they reproduce then well they don't in the ant Community reproduction is a privilege an honor and a great responsibility having this privilege doesn't have to do with being the fittest or strongest one but comes by birth being a highly diverse species ants have many reproductive strategies the most common one is the usual mating of a male with a female but this seems ordinary only at first glance in fact
32:47 ant reproduction is filled with such a powerful mix of drama romance and grotesque that people never dreamed of it all starts with a nupal flight this is a special time for insects when new colonies appear at all Planet latitudes where comes the spring Wing females and males leave the nest to mate and form new families this is the only time in the life of ants when they use their wings for their intended purpose ant wings are clumsy and function poorly females often climb high plant stems and use them as a launching pad to start
33:32 their flight males are more agile and often take off directly from the ground mating itself happens in the air right in mid-flight yes nature is sometimes that romantic but that's where the romance ends after mating the male no longer has any life purpose and soon dies what does the female do she flies away from her former home upon Landing it immediately bites off its own Wings what for because she doesn't need them anymore the female is fertilized only once in her life there will never be a second flight
34:19 ever the future Queen begins to look for a place to form a new Colony the genetic material left by the male is enough for the a female to lay fertilized eggs throughout her life and queens live for a very long time up to 12 to 20 years depending on the species simple worker ants live no more than 5 years however it's worth noting that such breeding patterns are typical for most ant species but not all in some species workers can also mate and produce Offspring and in some species hit the Other Extreme and reproduce by
35:08 cloning no no Laboratories or test tubes but the idea is somewhat similar for example an species called mapor smithi reproduces by parthenogenesis in this type of reproduction females emerge from unfertilized egg and these are not some extra eggs that the males didn't have time to get to the thing is that there is no one to fertilize them there are simply no males in the process of evolution the species deem them to be nonessential when colonies of micosis smithi were discovered in the Amazon basin scientists were amazed at this turn of Natural
35:53 Evolution all individuals in the discovered Colony were females and all of them were exact copies of the same Queen and naturally each other the data was published in a report by the research team in proceedings of the Royal Society the researchers admitted that they stumbled upon this amazing fact by accident they noticed that the males were missing while studying other aspects of this species life not being able to identify males in the nest based on external signs scientists conducted a DNA analysis of the individuals they collected they found that all of them were indeed females and that they were all Queen
36:41 clones after that scientists found that the most important reproductive organ in a queen the copulatory bag has completely lost its function however several years later large-scale research revealed that individual population of this species didn't completely lose sexual reproduction but this doesn't change anything since 90% of all selected individuals in all of South and Central America turned out to be clones coming from different Queens but still clones and this means that MOS searis smithi finally choose its reproduction method but it can be a tragic mistake
37:36 because this reproduction method can't provide sufficient diversity the species becomes extremely vulnerable to external threats and may face rapid Extinction however The Disappearance of one species doesn't affect the stability of the ant kingdom as a whole these guys easily outlive the D URS so they're unlikely to be seriously endangered and given how ant Society works it's time to think that these guys may well build some kind of alternative civilization in terms of social structure ants are the closest to humans on Earth each new discovery in Mir mology the science of ants proves this once and
38:24 again the antil has a strict High and distribution of roles the nest is managed by the Queen the founder of the colony who lays eggs the queen is surrounded by a retinue of 10 to 12 worker ants who serve her by feeding and taking care of her in every possible way as a rule mostly young ants do this this is literally a kind of social practice that all Nest inhabitants go through for about a month the task of such trainees is to take care of the queen eggs or larvi mature individuals go to the farthest part of the antil patrolling
39:10 area where they engage in foraging the ant brings the food it is found to the authorities who decide how it gets distributed throughout the antill in addition to food the antill is also fed with a special pheromone and odor substance secreted by the queen it contains information about her health ants from the retinue lick this substance from the queen carry it in a special goer and pass it on to each other one by one thus all individuals of the ant Society are connected to one information space a small town social network of ants if you
39:56 will what's interesting about ants life is how they bring up their offspring ants can learn interactively that is acquire knowledge based on someone else's experience rather than their own mistakes this is generally something extraordinary for insects the most experienced and tough forager Hunter is the first to attack the prey it shows the young its skills on how to attack sting and kill that's how it teaches the younger generation hunting skills but in order to learn successfully one needs to have a good memory and the Ants can't complain active foragers who look for food on their own can perfectly know their
40:41 hunting area and remember how to get home if the ant path is blocked by an intricate Labyrinth the foragers will eventually find a passage after wandering through some nooks and crannies and then they remember the Labyrinth path for at least 4 days even if they have to stay put due to bad weather during this time ants have a good sense of time and effectively use it if a feeder is placed strictly at a certain time near the ant path the foragers will quickly remember the time when the food appears and will gather at this site just in time if the feeding stops the ants will still come to this place for another 5 days at the very same time
41:28 [Music] phol ants are very well organized at the first warning signal they only prepare the family property for moving they bring the larvi and Pupi to the exit and only a small part to the surface as if hoping for a false alarm the ants don't actually start fleeing until the danger is confirmed given such a complex interaction action how do thousands of ants manage to communicate effectively how do they know where to go what to do and how do they remember all this data in fact they don't have to remember anything and their communication methods
42:13 are much richer than they seem ants don't have ears as humans do they hear by measuring vibrations specially knee and leg sensors help them pick up the vibrations around some ants make sounds by stridulation a characteristic chirping produced with the stomach and jaw segments sounds can be used to communicate with the colony members or even with other species but perhaps the main communication method is the smell ants leave pheromone traces on the soil surface which are easily picked up by other individuals in species that feed in groups the
42:59 foraging ants Mark the trail on its way back to the Colony after finding something tasty other ants follow this Trail and reinforce it with their pheromones when they go back to the Colony with food when the food source Runs Out The Returning ants leave no new trails and the smell slowly dissipates this Behavior helps the ants cope with environmental changes for example when an an established path to a food source is blocked by an obstacle foragers leave that path to explore new routes if successful the ant leaves a new Trail indicating the shortest path on its return successful trails are followed by more ants who reinforce the best routes
43:47 this is how ants form their famous Trails ants use pheromones for more than just Trails a squashed ant emits an alarm pheromone that drives nearby ants into an attack frenzy and attracts ants from afar some ant species even use misleading pheromones to confuse enemy ants and cause them to attack each other pheromones are produced by many structures in the ants bodies dforce glands Venom glands as well as the glands in the hind gut coxic rectum sternum and hind leg are all used for pheromone communication ants also exchange phermones with each other mixing them
44:32 with food thereby transmitting information within the colony this allows other ants to determine which task group other family members belong to also some ant types have more than one Queen in the colony but a whole cast of queens and when the dominant Queen stops producing a specific pheromone it signals a change in power the workers begin to take care of another queen who becomes the dominant one the variety of communication modes combined with tiny but extremely rational brains give ants an amazing advantage in building a civilization like Society being infinitely far from higher mammals and especially people ants
45:18 nonetheless turn out to be capable of Agriculture and animal breeding in the most real sense of the word [Music] most ants are generic Predators scavengers and herbivores many herbivorous ant species rely on a unique symbiosis with their own gut microbes to enhance the nutritional value of the plant food they harvest but many ant species have achieved some remarkable results by following the path that was once chosen by humans specifically ants have developed their own branch of [Music] Agriculture this practice has spread so widely that ant farming can now be
46:04 clearly classified the most primitive lower agriculture was Mastered by 80 an species 34 species of ants grow coral mushrooms for their needs and 18 species practice yeast breeding finally 63 ant species have mastered higher agriculture they learn to grow mushrooms and create entire mushroom Gardens what's even more surprising some special mushroom varieties have emerged that were literally domesticated by generations of ants these mushrooms can no longer survive in the wild but only at ant farms under the watchful care of these amazing
46:51 creatures a colony of leaf cutting ants represents a good example of such agriculture they arrange entire mushroom plantations and use finely chopped leaves as a substrate Yes you heard that right the ants bring the leaves to the Colony and cut them into small pieces to use as fertilizer and even in agriculture ants retain a clear specialization and a set of professions basically an ant's job depends on the size of the individual the larger workers cut the stems smaller individuals gnaw the leaves into pieces and the smallest tend to the plantation they even protect mushrooms from harmful bacteria the bacteria that produce
47:38 substances that act as an antibiotic against other bacteria that are dangerous to fungi live on the outer surface of the ant's body leaf cutter ants are sensitive enough to recognize the fungus's reaction to various plant materials by picking up mushrooms chemical signals if a certain type of leaf is found to be toxic to fungi The Colony will remember it and won't pick it again such a high level of self-organization of ant communities can shock almost anyone as if this wasn't enough the ants went one step further how do you like the fact that ants have also managed to master animal husbandry part of being active and
48:24 formidable Predators especially considering their size ants have learned to keep livestock but instead of cattle they breed aphids who secrete special nectar called honeydew which is a valuable high energy food ants graze aphids on nearby plants and take care of them protecting them from other Predators they learn not only to collect the nectar secreted by aphids but also to literally milk these tiny insects to milk an aphid the ant tickles its abdomen with its antenni and the aphid obediently releases excess nectar at the ant's first request interestingly this doesn't even
49:11 come close to parasitism since without ants care aphids die much sooner from other Predators when migrating to another area many ant colonies take aphid herds with them the parallels with our animal farming are quite obvious here looking at all these achievements one might think that ants represent some kind of flawless life form they have an invincible incredibly precise and rational Collective Consciousness however their way of life only seems to be Flawless at first sight as it has some major downsides and when taken collectively these downsides May sometimes lead to a full-blown tragedy
50:00 look at this what's this are the ants celebrating something wedding or perhaps a ritual dance no this is the so-called death Circle almost all of these ants will soon die they will continuously spin in this deadly circle to the point of complete exhaustion but what for and why in reality this phenomenon occurs due to a system error remember we've mentioned how well pheromone Trail marking works for ants but even though developed through millions of years of evolution this system might play a cruel joke on
50:48 ants if a group of ants Mak several turns in the same direction along the Route May stumble upon its own odor Trail left just just a minute ago after walking along the path the insect makes the same turns again going back to the same point and the cycle repeats over and over again the most annoying thing is that when following their own footsteps many times the ants keep on secreting pheromones in doing so they reinforce this vicious circle and their own confidence that they're going in the right direction these cheerful and unsuspecting ants are joined by their friends who have absolutely no idea as to what caused this massive
51:34 procession the result of this March is easily predictable thousands of individuals die from exhaustion in this deadly dance only an accidental external intervention can save them the largest death Circle was observed by the US traveler William BBE in 1921 in Guyana he claimed that is ants created a 365 M Wide Circle and their self-destructive March lasted 2 Days by the way such whirlwinds aren't that rare and almost all types of ants can be sucked into the death Circle unfortunately ants do this as a part of ingrain behavior patterns such accidents happen all the
52:20 time wherever there are several ant trails nearby however we simply walk by most of them them and often only a few individuals fall into the trap on open and flat terrains such circles May reach truly gigantic proportions and it looks creepy the ants behave like some kind of zombie but did you know that ants can actually become zombies no kidding a typical zombie apocalypse scenario we see in movies is an infection that turns people into creepy mindless creatures but nature has a similar Eerie
53:09 scenario this is ceps lopsided it seems to be a harmless fungus but if ants had dreams this fungus would surely be their worst nightmare being infected with the spores of this fungus is the most terrible thing that can happen to an ant once in the ant's body corep spores begin to germinate inside controlling the insect's Behavior more and more in the most real sense of the word to turn an ant into a docile zombie the fungus simultaneously affects several important functions of the nervous system it disrupts the ant's daily routine by interfering with the genes responsible for Cadian rhythms
53:57 what's even worse the parasite affects the victim's sense of smell its main Communication channel as a result the infected individual loses contact with its friends Strays far away and doesn't get back to the Colony at this stage the fungus already controls Its Behavior looking for optimal conditions to fully mature eventually the fungus causes the ant to find a cool damp spot and bite down on the bottom of the leaf on the branch once the ant bites the leaf it can no longer Let It Go as the fungus blocks muscle function the fungus keeps on growing inside the ant's body until it eventually pierces its head and releases
54:43 new spores this whole process takes about 10 painful days and most of the time the insect is alive a real nightmare isn't it science is long known of this phenomenon but until now scientists have been unable to understand exactly how the parasitic fungus can control the ant's mind it has often been called a brain parasite but a study from February 2021 published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences disproves this Theory it turns out that the insect's brain remains intact and the Ant is
55:28 being controlled by introducing the melium into the muscle fibers throughout the body in fact an affected ant becomes an exoskeleton and a means of fungus Transportation while ant tissue cells are partially replaced by fungi that is the ant effectively becomes one with the fungus like a real Puppeteer fungus pulls the strings forcing the ant to perform from this terrible scenario having no chance to get rid of this zombie influence nonetheless despite all their weaknesses ants firmly occupy their niche in the Earth's biosphere and the structure of their
56:14 society and how closely it resembles human civilization is even a little shocking who knows what kind of civilization leap they might make in the future these animals aren't like any other living creatures on Earth they look like they came from some other planet biologically speaking they are quite different from all other terrestrial beings which has put them in the spotlight a long time ago at the same time they look very funny especially when Dancing In The Water The Offspring of these creatures are born not by females as usual but by males which sets them apart from all other terrestrial
57:01 beings the smallest species of these creatures are only 2 cm long and the largest are up to 30 their body is covered with spikes they serve both as camouflage and protection from predators because they don't know how to defend themselves at the same time they're very successful Predators with a hooping 90% hunting success rate which far exceeds the rate of such dangerous predators as leopards white sharks or killer whales they can also mimic chameleons by changing their body color they merge with the vegetation thereby avoiding the attention of both predators and potential prey they need to eat continuously
57:46 throughout their lives otherwise they run the risk of starving to death since they don't have a stomach the ingested food is absorbed and waste is removed right away their eyes can look in different directions at the same time very few living creatures on Earth actually have this ability strictly speaking they are fish and it's the slowest fish in the world the smallest representative of this species can swim only 1 and 1/2 to 2 m an hour so what are these creatures our story today is about seahorses mysterious and completely unique inhabitants of the world's
58:31 oceans in this video you will learn where these amazing creatures come from why male seahorses get pregnant and give birth to The Offspring some facts about their lifestyle body structure the benefits of an upright position after all they swim vertically like almost no other Oceanic creature the reason for not having a stomach how these slow fish hunt why is it nearly impossible to keep them in fish tanks and many other fascinating and unusual facts [Music] seahorses the first seahorses emerged on Earth at least 13 million years ago according to paleontologists this is
59:18 exactly how old their oldest fossilized remains are this period was marked by the emergence of such Mountain systems as the Himalayas and Alps and there were still 12 million years left before the homo antecessor genus appeared which gave rise to the human race for many years paleo theologists have wondered about seahorses origin and evolution and while earlier their origin was considered a mystery there's been some substantial progress in this field in recent years fossils show that as far back as 13 million years ago these fish looked almost like modern ones which means that they had originated and evolved much
1:00:03 earlier a number of genetic studies on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA Pro the existing hypothesis that seahorses originated through evolutionary Transformations from pip horse which happened 25 million years ago indeed if we mentally bend the pipe horse into a chess horse figure get rid of its tail fin twist the remaining stem into a spiral and add more outgrowths horns on the muzzle we would get a regular seahorse it's likely that during its Evolution the pipe horse separated from the classic pipe fish that already had a twisted tail and a slightly curved body which later gave rise to typical seahorses using the most modern methods
1:00:51 paleontological research fully proves this Theory therefore the hypothetical alien origin of seahorses is just a beautiful mystical idea that was completely debunked by science but where does this strange reproduction come from after all the pipe horses who are the seahorses ancestors breed in the most common way while in seahorses it is the male that bears The Offspring this is also a very interesting story more about that in a minute seahorses live in coastal shallow areas of tropical and subtropical seas and oceans and cold water is actually harmful to them there are about 50 species of these creatures and each can
1:01:39 flaw a unique appearance and color what makes them special is that they seem to have combined body parts of various animals and not only Marine ones the head resembles a horse but has a pointed Mouth Peak like an ante eater the 360° vision and separately rotating eyes as well as the ability to change colors and merge with the environment are something that seahorses share with a chameleon an abdominal pouch forbearing Offspring resembles that of a kangaroo and a twisted tail that seahorses use to cling to vegetation reminds us of some primate species a miracle of nature nothing less nothing more
1:02:26 by fish standards seahorses swim very poorly and slowly because of this they lead a predominantly sedentary lifestyle attaching their tail to sea plants merging with them and thus waiting for prey becoming hard to spot for larger predators that is why they live in Shallow grassy areas of the world's oceans where swimming vertically is an advantage that allows you to masterfully blend into the environment vertical Blades of grass and corals easily hide vertical fish provided that it completely Blends in with the environment's color and texture typically seahorses live for four to 5 years seahorses live in colonies but they can't be called
1:03:11 schooling fish they swim and prey alone and breed in pears when seahorses choose a partner most often they don't separate all their lives perhaps this isn't the most accurate comparison but seor colonies and lifestyle resemble not that of fish but you won't believe it people we also settle in colonies otherwise known as cities or towns and each person lives separately or creates a couple seahorses have a very similar way of life seahorses are the only vertebrates whose males bear children and give birth in many known animals fathers incubate eggs protect protect and feed Offspring
1:03:57 but only in seahorses do males bear fertilized eggs and give birth early in the morning males perform a ritual dance each male swims around his Chosen One demonstrating that he is ready to breed during the mating period the male's shell and the chest turns dark seahorses are talented dancers who like circling each other or a floating object flashing iridescent colors and inter Twining tails in a courtship that sometimes lasts for several days bowing his head the seahorse moves in circles around the female with his tail slightly touching the bottom this elaborate courtship dance takes place every day but mating requires the male
1:04:43 and female to mature at the same time on a mating day at a certain moment during the greeting ritual the female abruptly raises her head and swims up and the male follows her at this moment you can easily see the female's ovipositor and the male widely opens up his pouch the female directs the ovipositor into the wide opening of the pouch and lays eggs which are fertilized by the male at the same time the whole process takes only 6 seconds it's hard to believe such high efficiency but nature is rich in Miracles and science proves this fact with the help of videos and research the male brood Sac is analogous to the
1:05:29 placenta in female mammals providing oxygen and nutrients to Growing embryos but why contrary to all the logic and reason this function is given by nature to seahorse males while this is a mystery to scientists the only plausible theory that wasn't refuted by other hypotheses is that in this way nature allows seahorses to produce the maximum number of offspring after laying the eggs and entrusting the male with bearing embryos the female begins to produce eggs again thus making the process of reproduction virtually continuous this is very true in a population of creatures where less than 0.5% of newborns survive until adult
1:06:16 childbearing age after all seahorse fry although fully formed and ready for living independently after birth don't yet have armor and spikes like their parents and become easy prey in the ocean jungle child birth is a complex biological process that in pregnant female mammals and reptiles is controlled by hormones including oxytocin it causes contractions of the smooth muscles of the uterus smooth muscles are a special type of muscle that cannot be controlled consciously and are found in the walls of most internal organs and blood V vessels scientific Studies have shown that in male seahorses the bulk of The Brood pouch muscles are skeletal muscles
1:07:04 which are under conscious control in other words male seahorses decide when they give birth thanks to the six-pack abs male abdominal skeletal muscles that are much bigger than in females future fathers literally shoot batches of tens or even hundreds of fry up to, 1500 eggs during child birth Earth quickly emptying The Brood pouch despite the differences between the brood pouch and the mamalian uterus the daddy fish can experience very strong labor pains during childbirth making this a very exhausting process for the male the male carries the eggs for 9 to 45 days until the seahorse's hatch fully developed but very small the younger
1:07:50 then released into the water and the male will often made again within hours or days during the breeding season while seahorses aren't known to mate for life many species form pairs that last at least through the breeding season some species show a higher level of couple Fidelity than others however many species willingly change Partners when the opportunity arises the mating habits of many other species haven't been studied so it's unknown how many species are actually monogamous and how long these bonds last the females have the final say when choosing a mate not the males in fish and other animals that don't have brilliant intelligence monogamy is very rare to come by however the lack of
1:08:38 intelligence or rather the lack of long-term memory in fish can separate a couple and they will no longer feel a liking for each other after just a few days of being apart they will simply forget each other immediately after birth seahorse fry begin to live independently from their parents not being under their care in any way like most newborn animals on Earth as early as the first minutes of Life they begin to feed on microscopic Crustaceans however they may become food themselves for other aquatic creatures due to their defenselessness unformed armor and small size the structure of the body and tail is another unique feature of seahorses
1:09:24 that calls for special attention the body structure of the vast majority of marine animals protects them from predators razor sharp fins venomous spikes and needles armor-like carrasses skin pattern that mimics the environment all these features are designed to ensure one's protection and survival in the ocean jungle the defense that seahorses have is completely different from most living creatures known to us their body is covered with movable bony plates that slide parallel to each other providing greater maneuverability during movement this armor works better than for example incrustations and at the same time is much more durable than fish
1:10:09 scales they are difficult to bite through or break and can only be bent allowing the seahorse to survive in the most dangerous situations the seahorse's tail is square not round like in all other animals the the skeleton of a seahorse's tail is made from L-shaped bone pieces that fit together to form these squares the squares line up in rows that become progressively smaller towards the tail tip muscles attached to the skeleton allow the tail to move and even grasp objects compared to an oval-shaped tail like in our beloved dogs and cats the seahorse tail was found to be stiffer stronger and more resilient under shock loads the tail of square prisms bends
1:10:56 much better and combined with the structure's rigidity which almost doesn't allow the tail to twist makes it possible to grab the surrounding objects more firmly grasping Tales of any kind are super rare among fishes out of some 30,000 kinds of fish only seahorses and their close relatives called pipe horses can get a tail grip yet within the seahorse family the rare fishtails that bend into a hook have evolved into dependently several times Square segments press more surface area against the body of the seahorse than round segments this allows Square tals to have better grip control and promotes seahorse survivability an important part of their hunting and
1:11:43 camouflage in addition scientific experiments have shown that when crushed Square tail plates are flattened which prevents damage to the spinal column and saves seahorse's life when attacked see how the square plate bends but doesn't break Nature has given seahorses a unique body and tail structure of all the fauna only they and some other types of chameleons have square shaped Tails but they are no swimmers and the problem is not the vertical position but the fins the seahorse is only three of them a small dorsal fin two Gill fins near the head which in fact serve as a steering wheel that allows them to choose movement
1:12:28 Direction pelvic and pectoral fins are absent because of this some types of seahorses cannot swim faster than a few meters hour however with a sedentary lifestyle this isn't a problem for them they don't rely on speed for survival or hunting like other fish but rather on their sless if they need to migrate to a new more suitable Place seahorses travel on top of a larger fish clinging to their fins with their tails and leaving their transport after reaching a suitable place like their favorite kelp beds the seahorse's swim bladder is located along the entire body and is divided by a septum that separates the head from the rest of the body the calic
1:13:16 bladder is larger than the abdominal one which ensures the vertical position of the seahorse when swimming in this position which makes them strange and unusual creatures in the underwater world is also their great Advantage allowing them to hunt as efficiently as possible and have the status of one of the most successful Hunters on the planet what makes their hunting successful this question haunts many scientists and a lot of research was done to answer this question including a video recording of seahorse hunting and even the creation of mathematical models that allow us to accurately calculate the algorithm of their hunting success few of the inhabitants of the underwater world can boast of such a
1:14:01 high rate and the answer is as follows hiding in algae or corals seahorses slowly bring their head closer to the unsuspecting prey and then they instantly suck it up through their tubular snout this technique is known as pivot feeding it relies on moving the mouth towards the prey by tilting the head upwards which pivots at the neck joint the suction is so fast that even frame byf frame filming doesn't allow you to see this this means that the process takes not tenths but hundredths of a second this is where the real speed of seahorses comes into play it requires a lot of energy which the seahorses can accumulate in the tendons associated with the head rotation and then release
1:14:49 creating a powerful suction force and the seahorse's elongated muzzle creates a calm Zone around itself where small Crustaceans and shrimp their main sources of food don't feel threatened and can come up very close in this way seahorses managed to achieve a hunting success rate of up to 90% one of the highest hunting success rates among any predators in the world to put this into perspective less than half of the attacks by great white sharks which terrify most aquatic inhabitants end in success graceful yet powerful leopards catch their prey only 74% of the time and highly intelligent and cunning orcas that hunt seals dolphins and whale Cales
1:15:36 in well organized groups sometimes for hours on end achieve success in up to 80% of cases meanwhile small slow harmless looking and slightly ridiculous seahorse excels at hunting more than all of them however seahorses hunting success is not a whim of nature but a basic survival need because they have neither teeth nor a stomach how do they eat and digest food then well the seahorse actually digests food with the rest of its digestive system not with one particular organ a special gland similar to the melan pancreas secretes digestive enzymes directly into the intestines allowing
1:16:22 food to be broken down as it passes through the body due to the absence of a stomach this process occurs much faster than in other animals and fish so the seahorse has to eat almost continuously and be an excellent Hunter adult seahorses eat 30 to 50 times a day and in some cases the number of meals can be several hundred times but if you decide to watch these amazing creatures on your own remember that seahorses don't tolerate fish tank anank s because they are prone to stress once in an unfamiliar environment they constantly feel frightened and nervous and often refuse to eat eventually dying of hunger and nervous
1:17:08 exhaustion for example shaking and rocking will almost certainly kill them if you decide to transfer a vessel of seahorses by a car or a ship in total there are about 50 species of seahorses in the world but 30 of them are on the verge of Extinction the greatest danger for them is people they're actively caught for souvenirs because of their unusual appearance according to official statistics only in China 20 million of these unusual fish are caught annually and this is not counting the massive cases of poaching that aren't taken into account the depths of the world's oceans hide many secrets and wonders incredible
1:17:53 monstrous creatures and perhaps those creatures that we don't even know about yet but the seahorse living in shallow water has been well studied by scientists that is why it is so delightful demonstrating Nature's incredible ability to create strange yet almost perfect beings combining seemingly incompatible things into one a horse's head and a kangaroo's pouch unique hunting skills and a bizarre look [Music] they take off with no run and rush to the Target following all the rules of aerobatic flight a tracking system with thousands
1:18:39 of the most advanced optical devices helps to accurately determine the desired coordinates nothing can prevent these almost Flawless assassins from attacking what is this some kind of new super weapon or creatures from a fantasy Thriller who want to conquer our planet no we're talking about well-known regular dragonflies we tend to admire these spectacular insects with huge eyes bright bodies and transparent Wings they could be Scarlet green or blue some Shimmer like liquid metal and others look like colored glass or enamel they seem to embody goodness and Beauty in fact in fact these cute flying
1:19:25 creatures are one of the most ferocious and successful Predators on Earth even the names of dragonfly species often reflect their aggressive nature for example there are broad-bodied hunters and four spotted Hunters the prey chased by a dragonfly is most likely doomed their hunting success rate is almost 100% while in Lions this figure reaches only 25% in wolves 14% and in Bears 10% do you know how dragonflies manage to excel at killing this is an absolutely incredible story The insect's body structure and life cycle are so unusual that they could well have come from another
1:20:11 planet and even though dragonflies have a terrestrial origin their world is simply mesmerizing let's dive into this world together and learn more about these amazing creatures cute and terrible graceful and armed from head to tail so familiar yet so unknown how did dragonfly survive the dinosaurs when were they Giants the size of a hawk and who turned dragonflies into the most advanced super
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