What do y'all think about Antscanada discovering a new ant species?

syrian dugong

Soldier
Ecosystem Beta Tester
In my opinion the video is just bad (No offense). The video is completely full of clickbait and misinformation in it. The ant in the video is Meranoplus bicolor. Not a new species and there is so many images of M. bicolor that resembles the ant in AC new video. So you may be wondering, if it isn't a new species like I said. Then what else? Invasive or native? In my opinion, It's definitely a new record of M. bicolor in the Philippines and definitely not a new species (Yes, Antscanada lives in the Philippines for those are confused).
 

Rensy

Colony
I like the video myself, yes, antscanada/Mikey Bustos did say it was veryyy similar to Meranoplus Bicolor, but he said that a myrmecologist and texanomist called Dr. General (atleast what he calls him) is examining specimens of the ant species, and if Dr. General is done examining the ant species by the next episode he will inform antscanada/Mikey Bustos what he thinks and if it is indeed a new discovered species or its just Meranoplus Bicolor. All we can do is sit and wait for this or possibly next Saturday to come For Mikey Bustos to inform his dear fans of what Dr. General has said about this.
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
As a training Myrmecologist (now home training, thanks COVID) many ants look the same, but sometimes its the slight change in legs/mandibles or even their position which can determine what the ant is. Sometimes the difference can only be revealed under a microscope.
 

Rensy

Colony
I don’t speak that language, but it probably said something about mike busto getting banned.
I google translated it, and its confusing, its Hungarian for saying
"this ant species is included in the antscanada", at least this is what google translate says, and its confusing.
 

person111

Colony
Ecosystem Beta Tester
I’d say it’s definately an achievement but like you pointed out it is slightly clickbait
 

Serafine

Queen
Backer
Beta Tester
Ecosystem Beta Tester
Many ant species look so much alike that even experts have trouble telling them apart - the best example for this is the Tetramorium caespitum-impurum species complex, an absolute nightmare of cryptic speciation consisting of over 30 species many of which are only identifiable by their males' genitalia and some even only by genetic analysis. Since ants rely on pheromones to find mating partners it doesn't matter if they look absolutely the same - as long as they just "smell" different the ants will know the difference.

And seriously, AC being clickbait is neither new nor entirely his own fault. If you want to be successful on Youtube you're basically forced to do whatever the algorithm decides to shove into people's newsfeeds at a given time (like putting those absolutely stupid red arrows in thumbnails or encouraging users to post thousands of comments for giveaways - the "question of the week" is just an easy way to massively inflate the number of comments on his videos and the algorithm is too dumb to tell the difference between that and actual user engagement so it thinks like "hey, people comment a lot on this video it must be really popular or controversial, let's shove it into more people's faces"). There's an interesting court case though slowly making its way through the US legal system that could result in "content filter" algorithms like those creating newsfeeds for Youtube, Twitter and Instagram becoming illegal. Maybe one day we'll see less clickbait as a result of that.
 
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Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
"I'm doing a giveaway, like my post for a chance to enter"
Is the forum version of "like, comment and subscribe for a chance to win an AC Ant Keeping Book"


Both books are good though.
 
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