Name: Which of these FIVE FLAVOURS will FIRE ANTS love most? | Fire Ant Taste Test
Uploaded: 2020-05-30T15:20:14.000Z
Duration: 11 min 52 s
Description: 白糖、黑糖、蜂蜜、香蕉和草莓果凍，紅火蟻喜歡什麼口味呢？Learn the English Usage: ant,brown sugar,flavour,jelly,brown,strawberry,phoenix,taste,experiment,preference,honey,banana,empire,taste...

Which of these five tasty flavours will fire ants choose?

Well, today we're going to find out in the ultimate ant taste test challenge.

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In all my years of ant keeping, I've never tried to find out if my pet ants prefer certain

I just simply threw in their food and they ate it.

But wouldn't a knowledge of what flavours ants prefer be great to know?

Other than giving my pet ants their favourite tasting food every day, knowing what flavours

they like or dislike, may come in handy when for instance, having a picnic outside at a

park where fire ants might happen to be living.

So that's why this week, I decided to conduct an experiment using my fire ant colony, the

Phoenix Empire, as subjects for an ultimate taste test, using some common flavours.

I'll tell you now, I was pretty surprised at the results, and you might be, too, so

Now let's go over the taste test experiment.

This taste test was done using these sweet jelly cups for three reasons: First, all the

jelly cups had the same consistency, so the ants couldn't choose based on the texture

of the food, seeing as ants have a general preference for soft moist food over anything

Second, all the jelly cups were the same amounts, so I could more easily see how much of the

And third, all the flavours were under the sweet category, because if I were to offer

different categories of flavours, like salty, bitter, sour, etc, I'm pretty sure sweet

and whatever a cockroach tastes like would end up winning!

Here are the five flavours we would be taste testing today on our fire ants:

My fire ants used to drinking white sugar dissolved in water in their sugar test tubes,

which by the way, I let dry out a couple days ago for this experiment.

If white sugar flavour ends up winning, I'm sure it's because they're already used

Do you think the ants would choose the healthier sugar flavour?

Does the brown sugar being healthier rule even apply to ants?

The Phoenix Empire has had brown sugar water in the past, so this taste is also not new

A very common choice of sugar source for ant keepers.

I have found that some species of ants don't particularly like honey only because they

can't digest it well, but honey flavoured jelly might be more palatable.

What fruit-loving animal doesn't like banana, a high sugar fruit with a distinct taste?

Which brings us to our last flavour, strawberry.

A lower sugar fruit, that random fact, again, is actually not a berry.

I'm just as upset that someone clearly lied to us as kids!

This venue would be a suitable place to have the experiment as we can better control the

It's just a simple take-out container, with the lid cut up so we could see inside, lined

with baby powder along the bottom so the fire ants can't escape.

Not sure if this will be a permanent installment to their setup, but it will do for this experiment!

Inside we have our five flavours, each equidistant from the entrance point, so that the fire

ants don't simply choose whichever cup is closest.

I'll be connecting it to this port here in their ac Test Tube portal where their empty

sugar test tube is currently connected, because the ants already know this place as the source

of their sweet food, which will make this experiment easier.

So how will we know which flavour the ants choose?

Well, we will give the ants 12 hrs to sample all flavours and whichever flavour has the

If we give the ants more time, I'm afraid they'll just eat everything and we won't

be able to tell which they liked the most.

Which flavour do you think the ants will like the most?

Let us know in the comments section and at the end go back to your comment and see if

Instantly, the ants travel through the tube and enter the sugar chamber.

At first, they took the time to explore the new uncharted territories, but soon an ant

discovered the banana and even had a taste of the white sugar.

Meanwhile, some other ants discovered the brown sugar, and strawberry.

The ants began filling the area with pheromones so that the oblivious ants below could come

up and check out the sweet goods just above them.

I slipped a white paper under the container so we could better watch the ants gather to

feed from the jelly cups and observe their trails.

What's great about this method of taste testing is that ants actually work on a democratic

system, where the collective ant mind is driven by a pheromonal voting.

The ants use chemicals to recruit and/or convince surrounding ants to do something or come somewhere,

and in this case, it's to come try the jelly!

Over time, we should see the ants' collective preference manifest as the ants crowdsource

Sorry, it seems the brown sugar is hard to see, but don't worry.

Also while shooting, I noticed that some of the fire ants were squeezing through tiny

spaces between the lid and the container so I had to place baby powder on the wall of

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Which of these FIVE FLAVOURS will FIRE ANTS love most? | Fire Ant Taste Test

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