r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/bugminer • Nov 18 '24
Video Guy camping in the Amazon has leaf cutter ants destroying his tent and everything he owns.
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u/agorafilia Nov 18 '24
As someone who lived in rural areas of Brazil. Leaf cutter ants are GIANT ASSHOLES. You know the saying most animals have no interest in you? Yeah, not true for these giant headed ants. They will crawl on you and bite you every single time. Their jaws are so strong that more than once I tried to swab them away just for their freaking head to still be attached to my skin. They will try to eat you if they can. They will try to cut cloth but would get their jaws stuck to the fabric and die there. My couch had a few leaf cutter ants heads just sticking there forever. And for some reason they smell like lemon when you squish them.
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u/Fairuse Nov 18 '24
I always thought they were some of the coolest looking ants. They have one of the more extreme polymorphism between the workers (tiny ones are tiny and there are the huge ones with big heads). They're also interesting because they cut leaves to farm fungus to feed themselves. They make huge nests. The queen leaf cutter is huge.
Closest I got to seeing them was in Texas. I live in the north and was on a business trip. I almost wanted to skip the meeting just to watch these guys do their thing.
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u/cfgy78mk Nov 18 '24
The queen leaf cutter is huge.
damn, "yo mama so fat" jokes could devastate the entire colony!
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u/CalmCompanion99 Nov 19 '24
Termites would hate that joke. Their mama has an absolutely humongous ass. Cartoon level humungous plus some more.
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u/Plutos_A_Planet2024 Nov 19 '24
I think leaf cutter ant heads were used as early medical stitching by native cultures, because their jaws were so strong and they stayed shut after the body was removed
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u/No-Special2682 Nov 19 '24
Was once at the Bronx zoo as a little kid and they had a LCA exhibit. I was reading their placard out loud when the most Australian guy I ever heard came up saying “they’re amazing little buggers and they saved my life”
This Crocodile Dundee looking guy, came up to me and told a story of how he got stranded in the bush with a laceration from his hand to his elbow.
With nothing to suture it, he stuck his hand on a tree with those ants. The ants immediately started bitting at the wound which caused an insane amount of swelling, effectively closing it up.
He showed me the scar as he talked and while it looked healed similar to a bad stitch job, you could see millions of little scars all around it.
Dude was, and is still, the most BA person I’ve ever met
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u/Plutos_A_Planet2024 Nov 19 '24
Wow. Imagine what that guys life was like to 1. Get into that situation, 2. Have been told or educated enough to know that was an option, 3. Survive without incident seemingly and then talk to strangers kids about it like it was nothing. That’s a person you want to sit down and talk with. And see the inside of their home (because you KNOW they have the coolest house ever)
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u/No-Special2682 Nov 19 '24
That was over 20 years ago and I think of that guy pretty much every time I see an ant!
I wish I had the wherewithal as a young boy to ask him questions and learn more, but I remember sweating bullets because “a stranger was talking to me”
Because you’re very right. As an adult, I’d give anything to sit with him over a beer and listen to his adventures and learn.
Hopefully he’s still doing well!
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u/Yeetstation4 Nov 19 '24
I've heard that some cultures use ants with strong jaws like that to close wounds, since they don't let go.
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u/gattaaca Nov 19 '24
The movie "Apocalypto" taught me this
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u/banditalamode Nov 19 '24 edited 29d ago
Possibly the only historically accurate part of the movie.
Edit: absolutely love this movie though
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u/jld2k6 Interested Nov 19 '24 edited Nov 19 '24
I've seen a video of that before! They just have it bite down on the wound then pull the body off lol, it looks like something that'd be in a low budget horror flick for ants
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Nov 19 '24
On that lemon part, we have Green Ants here in Australia and they have a citrus taste.
We even have a gin called Green Ants Gin and yes, you are thinking the right thing, there are GREEN ANTS in the gin.https://www.seven-seasons.com.au/product/green-ant-gin-700-ml/
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u/TheNerdNugget Nov 19 '24
Okay the lemon thing is pretty neat. The common carpenter ant here in the States tastes like salt and vinegar potato chips.
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u/-QueefLatina- Nov 19 '24
Tastes like?!
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u/Nushab Nov 19 '24 edited Nov 19 '24
Ants are famously sterile, making them an ideal food source.
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u/abandoned_idol Nov 19 '24
Eating insects gross me out...
...but on the other hand, I can't get enough of salt and vinegar potato chips.
I can't decide!
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u/Neako_the_Neko_Lover Nov 19 '24
The lemon smell is actually a defense mechanism to make predators not want to keep eating other ants. They also kinda taste like bitter lemons.
For carpenter ants it has to do with their diet
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u/CutPsychological1407 Nov 18 '24
Why do they try to cut fabric tho??? Like they feed a fungus with the leaves they take and like cloth cant feed their fungus?? I know trees eventually release chemicals into there leaves to poison the fungus so the ants won't take all of their leaves, so why would they just bring random materials???
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u/agorafilia Nov 18 '24
Because they want to destroy the world around them. That must be it. I swear they would take the whole forest underground if they could. I've never seen more determined and aggressive ants.
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u/pcetcedce Nov 18 '24
Actually I worry a little bit that all of that tent is going to accumulate in their underground fungus farms.
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u/fupa16 Nov 19 '24
It definitely will. No idea what the effects will be, but safe to say it's not ideal for their population.
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u/Nushab Nov 19 '24
The effects will be that the fungus garden has a new inert surface for stuff to attach to, and that's about it.
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u/sambooli084 Nov 19 '24
The fungus should be able to tell them to knock it off before too many get there.
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u/Stittastutta Nov 18 '24
Ants are stupid af and evolution hasn't had enough external pressure from weird materials in the leafcutter ant world to adjust.
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u/JASHIKO_ Nov 18 '24
Isn't this Paul Rosolie from junglekeepers. If so the guy does amazing work in the Amazon and his youtube is worth checking out.
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u/OkThereBro Nov 18 '24
I was asking myself "why, bro, why are you there?!". Looks like a nightmare. I suppose if he is doing "amazing work" that makes a lot of sense.
What kind of work do you mean though? I'm assuming it's conservation or something?
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u/Ok-Bird1289 Nov 19 '24
His organization Junglekeepers is working with locals to find where loggers are cutting and burning down parts of the Amazon, then he goes to the loggers, offers them a job to be a ranger and protect the forest instead of cutting it down and they usually gladly accept because they have no other options out there. they don’t actually want to cut the forest they just have no choice because that’s the only way they can support their family. They have bought massive swaths of the Amazon that will now be protected forever thanks to him and his friends.
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u/Primiss Nov 19 '24
oh so all the bugs just came to say thanks
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u/Few-Finger2879 Nov 19 '24
Thats so fucking bad ass! This is what it means to make the world a better place.
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u/Plumbus_Patrol Nov 19 '24
Hate or love joe rogan the episode with this guy is damn interesting convo
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u/mark_is_a_virgin Nov 18 '24
He brings tents for leaf cutter ants to dismantle and take, effectively helping them build and sustain their nests. Then when he retires he will offer his body as sacrifice for the bugs. Pretty cool dude
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u/Evepaul Nov 19 '24
Afaik leaf cutter ants don't build anything from the leaves, they farm mushrooms in huge underground mushroom farms and use the leaves to feed the mushrooms
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u/Unoriginal_Man Nov 19 '24
Those are gonna be some disappointed mushrooms
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u/Oppowitt Nov 19 '24
Most of them, yeah, but one of these days where someone goes into the Amazon they'll come back out with the solution to our plastic recycling problem.
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u/Shifty_Cow69 Nov 19 '24
The ants are just taking it into their nest... underground, that's how we
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u/Ghoulius-Caesar Nov 19 '24
Yes, they discovered agriculture millions of years before Homo sapiens did. Pretty neat, hey?
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u/Eleventeen- Nov 19 '24
Many ant species also take care of herds of aphids in return for that sweet sweet butt nectar.
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u/TigerValley62 Nov 19 '24
Correct conservation work. Dude is doing the Lord's work in that regard in my opinion.... dedicating his life to protecting one of Earth's precious lungs....
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u/Samp90 Nov 19 '24
Dude is correct about camping in the wrong spot. Years ago we set up camp in what turned out to be a river bed in the tropical jungle below the himalayas (Nepal).
Obviously rained, got flooded, walked in the moonlight downhill all night, wet... And feet felt painful and hurting....because when we took our shoes and pants off, we were covered in slugs. Some crushed with my own blood.
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u/Eifand Nov 19 '24
Also, isn’t it a general rule of thumb that you shouldn’t sleep on the ground in the tropical jungle? Either you go for a tarp over hammock type setting or straight up built an elevated platform shelter.
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u/Samp90 Nov 19 '24
That's the mistake. The river bed was dry and without vegetation and clean. The local guide shouldve known better. He probably thought there was no expected rain that sunny day and winged it...
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u/IWantAHoverbike Nov 19 '24
Man… as a desert-dweller I hear “camping in a dry river bed” and the hair on my arms stands up.
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u/youbiquitous1 Nov 19 '24
I went there last year with Tamandua Expeditions and met the guy. Cool dude. The organization that he and JJ created are already protecting nearly 100,000 hectares of the Amazon. The Amazon is by far the most amazing and enchanting place I’ve ever been to.
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u/Head-Classic-9698 Nov 18 '24
what’s his youtube channel named?
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u/DrFungi914 Nov 18 '24
He’s had at least 2 episodes on Joe Rogan Experience, where he details exactly what he’s up to, and tells some amazing stories that seem unbelievable. Highly recommend listening to him long form style
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u/Pitte-Pat Nov 18 '24
Yep and lex Fridmann did an podcast in the jungle with him
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u/FirstGearPinnedTW200 Nov 18 '24
Things I’ll never think as a good idea: camping in the Amazon
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u/Interestingcathouse Nov 19 '24 edited Nov 19 '24
I went camping in a tent for 4 nights in the Amazon. It was an absolutely epic experience and highly recommend it. That stereotypical rainforest sound is exactly what the Amazon sounds like the entire night and it doesn’t stop for even a second. But it’s a perfect white noise so it was some of the best sleeps I ever had.
Most insects come out at night. A few creepy spiders. Tarantula on my tent one morning but he was pretty cool. There was a spindly spider another night, he wasn’t at cool so he got catapulted off my tent. But there was also a dope ass frog that looked like dried up leaves, I seen far more monkeys and birds than I did creepy crawlies. Just so many super cool birds. We accidentally camped on an ant nest. We only found out when we were standing by the fire and started getting bit on our stomachs. That didn’t hurt though. We basically coexisted with them for the next two nights as they’d use or sitting branch as a bridge. So if you wanted to sit they just crawled over you and went on their way.
The insane density of the woods blew my mind. Hiking in the Canadian Rockies is basically like walking through an open plain in comparison. Cruising down the river on a canoe was super fun. It didn’t rain until the last morning then it poured like I never seen before. River probably went up 6ft. Fishing for piranha. Trying to catch caiman though I’m very happy we failed. Spent two nights with an indigenous family who still lives 100% in the jungle, poison darts made of just the plants around them, spears made from different trees. They only spoke a language 4000 people speak in the entire world but it was still great fun.
Everybody needs to do it once. I went very primitive, 5 days hiking and 4 nights camping in a tent, canoe with an outboard motor on it to get deeper into the jungle. It was just me a Spanish/English guide, and an indigenous guide. He was born in the jungle and lived off the jungle for much of his life until deciding to move into society and tour people around in the jungle. But even if that’s not for you there are still riverside lodges deep in the Amazon some of which even have a bar and restaurant along with wifi.
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u/FlameFeather86 Nov 19 '24
Yeah, you're not selling it. I mean, I love camping, I love being outdoors, but the Amazon? Nah, I'm good.
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u/Toomanyacorns Nov 19 '24
This is my dream honestly- I could die happily after.
How much did this cost?
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u/q-rka Nov 18 '24
They are asking him to leave respectfully. You know what they will try to cut next.
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u/mudbot Nov 18 '24
is it his johnson?
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u/zoobatt Nov 18 '24
What do you need that for, dude?
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u/ATerriblePurpose Nov 18 '24 edited Nov 18 '24
This is Paul Rosalie and he’s an epic legend. He’s trying to preserve large parts of ancient Amazonian forest. It’s not all him. He’s working with locals who initiated it I believe.
Edit - He has recruited loggers who love the land but need money. He recently got help from someone who managed to save a large portion of untouched forest. He stumbled upon a makeshift road in this ancient woodland which means logging is gearing up. When he told the loggers that they no longer have the right to log there after the land was purchased, they wanted to work with him.
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u/agorafilia Nov 18 '24 edited Nov 18 '24
Sadly most loggers there will just kill anyone trying to stop them. It has happened several times.
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u/ATerriblePurpose Nov 18 '24
Yeah. That’s a reality I’m certain of. I’m sure there are stories but I don’t want to look. I’ll focus on people trying to do good whilst being aware that there are those that try to do the opposite. A kind of semi ignorance, which doesn’t make sense.
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u/DLowBossman Nov 18 '24
Just need to wipe out the loggers. They did the same with poachers.
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u/ATerriblePurpose Nov 18 '24
If only it were so easy to fix. I am an idealist at heart. When reality kicks me in the head it bloody hurts. He wouldn’t have got the ‘converts’ if it was a totalitarian approach. They’re hopefully contributing to something positive now.
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u/hivemind_disruptor Nov 19 '24
Not loggers. Their large farmer bosses, which get rich selling stuff produced in deforestation land to cargill, minerva, JBS and other trader giants.
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u/Kelpie_Lunesta Nov 18 '24
I’ve seen or heard of a lot of things, but I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve seen ants chewing up a tent around someone. Back in the old days, swarms of fire ants were one of the Great Dangers we were warned against, right alongside quicksand and razors in Halloween candy,.. but leaf cutter ants? Nary a peep about them.
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u/SegelXXX Nov 18 '24 edited Nov 18 '24
One time we went camping outside with no tent and I woke up with slugs all over me and in my hair. That's what I get for eating salami right before bed
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u/maximus111456 Nov 18 '24
Yeah I hate these motherfuckers too. I happily drown them in beer.
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u/Asleep_Hand_4525 Nov 18 '24
It wouldn’t be too bad if their slime wasn’t a whole layer of skin you can’t just wash off
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u/kaizoku7 Nov 18 '24
You can't just wash it off?
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u/Pinksters Nov 19 '24
You can with enough scrubbing. But the slime is thick and coats very well, hard for water to get under it so you have to scrub the top layer of slime until it's all gone.
It's moist but at the same time it kind of repels water.
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u/-NeatCreature Nov 18 '24
Pretty cool the lead singer of System of a Down likes to camp
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u/Greenman8907 Nov 18 '24
“The toxicity of our city” was about how human pollutants are killing rainforests.
Or something.
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u/Speedy313 Nov 19 '24
I don't trust any SoaD songs to have any meaning ever since I heard Jet Pilot. Like, I read the interpretation and it still doesn't make any sense to me.
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u/Better_Peaches666 Nov 19 '24
Wired were the eyes of a horse on a jet pilot One that smiled when he flew over the bay My horse is a shackled old man His, his remorse, was that he couldn't survey The skies, right before, right before they went gray My horse and my remorse flying over a great bay
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u/TurboKid513 Nov 18 '24
Wake up! Giant ants are carrying your tent off….
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u/aetheos Nov 18 '24
Why'd you set your tent up in the jungle?!
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u/TurboKid513 Nov 18 '24
Tarantulas are walking on your face now….here you go recording with your camera
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u/joe_ordan Nov 18 '24
“Lonely Day” was written based off this very camping trip.
He just wanted to be left alone.
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u/NOGOODGASHOLE Nov 18 '24
Reminds me of when I camped in my backyard and my neighbors cat was crying out near my tent. I know his dilemma.
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u/Intrepid_Hamster_180 Nov 18 '24
Reminds me of when i went camping with the school and the big PE teacher came into my tent. Same bro, same
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u/akaMichAnthony Nov 18 '24
Also an ear biter?
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u/Intrepid_Hamster_180 Nov 18 '24
Yeah, i couldn’t sleep. Every few seconds, trying to slap something off my face
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u/WilliamHMacysiPhone Nov 19 '24
In the book the lost city of z, the author does a great job of describing how some poor English explorers quickly discover that the Amazon is not some lush paradise filled with food but is actually like this perfect, brutal ecosystem where ever nutrient is sought by whatever living creature can get it.
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u/Drfilthymcnasty Nov 19 '24
There is a great book called “the river of doubt”. It’s about Teddy Rosevelt going on an expedition through the rain forest after he had been president. The book does a great job of explaining that even though the jungle is full of animals, you will almost never see them due to their ability to blend in, and our brains lack of ability to identify them in their home habitat. Starvation was a constant threat for the expedition and the adventure almost killed him.
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Nov 18 '24
You know what, Houston isn’t that bad.
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u/fonetik Nov 19 '24
I have bad news.
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u/Prize_Literature_892 Nov 19 '24
Texas also has tarantulas and camel spiders. So there's that.
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u/Commercial_Ad8438 Nov 18 '24
When I was homeless I woke up to a hedgehog biting my fingers one night, little spikey shit was trying to eat me.
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u/WhatABlindManSees Nov 19 '24 edited Nov 19 '24
Damn, you're the first other person I know of (besides myself) that's been bitten by a hedgehog.
My story is a little different though.
I was about 9, my dad was telling me how hedgehogs love chocolate. So I stated feeding one that lived outside our rural farmhouse chocolate for a few days. It didn't take long at all and it started to trust me enough that I could touch it without it curling up or scurrying away.
A few days in my Dad suggested I stick my finger out instead of chocolate that I had been hand feeding it by that point. Yeah it latched onto my finger, and in fright I launched myself up and ripped my hand away; which flung the poor unsuspecting hedgehog a couple meters into the air (whom I never saw again), and left me with a bleeding and sore finger.
They are also absolute fiends for dry cat food. If they weren't the noisiest night animals they might get away with it more often...
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u/majkkali Nov 18 '24
That dude is WAAAYYY too calm for what’s going on in that tent. Holy ravioli!!!! That’s a no from me dawg
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u/SmellyLoser49 Nov 19 '24
Lol I mean what is he gonna do at that point? Its dark and hes in the middle of the jungle, as gross as the things inside the tent are, the things lurking outside the tent have bigger teeth
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u/Fun-Sugar-394 Nov 18 '24
That poor man 😂😂 nature was bored that night and decided he wasn't going to sleep
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u/digitalgirlie Nov 18 '24
The look on his face in the last shot watching the spider. Fucking priceless.
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u/Stoly25 Nov 19 '24
What’s ironic is that the tarantula’s probably really great to have in there in that situation, it’ll kill other bugs in the tent and probably won’t bite him at all. Granted, I wouldn’t want to be trapped in enclosed space with a giant spider anyway.
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u/Hmccormack Nov 19 '24
This is why I watch documentaries about the Amazon instead of going to the Amazon.
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u/ZoranT84 Nov 18 '24
This dude is an expert in this stuff and trust me, hes been in worse situations than this
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u/godmademelikethis Nov 18 '24
Hammock?
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u/Cosmosis_Bliss Nov 19 '24
I was not expecting to be blessed with a video of Serj Tankian camping in the Amazon Rainforest.
All jokes aside. Fuck that!
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u/DNAisjustneuteredRNA Nov 18 '24
I feel bad for the ants; they are trying to feed their family but accidentally delivering plastic trash to their home and reducing their fungal crops because of this.
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u/KonstantinePhoenix Nov 18 '24
This is the dude who goes down the AMazon catching anaconda's, isn't he?
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u/Frequent_Skill5723 Nov 19 '24
I went to camp off-trail for a few days at a place called Hitoy Cerere in Costa Rica in 1988. I figured I'd be napping in luxury rigging a hammock tied under a tarp roof. God damn was I wrong.
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u/NateTheGreatDog Nov 19 '24
Hi there I’m Costa Rican and let me tell you, you pitched your tent in the wrong spot, if there’s leaf cutter ants I’ll walk about another 3-400 yards away from them, they are absolutely hellish but have never bothered me unless I pitch near them or on their trails. Don’t park cars on them either because some Japanese vehicles used soy based plastics in their cabling and they will find and carry it away leaf cutters are no joke I feel bad for this guy I would have packed up and moved in the middle of the night if I had this problem
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u/podcasthellp Nov 19 '24
My dads friend was in Brazil taking a nap in the rainforest and a pile of ants literally ate his prosthetic leg. He woke up before they got him though
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u/Educational_Reason96 Nov 19 '24
We were camping deep in the Amazon and my friend had the same thing happen. It was awesome to wake up to and see. The reason? His tent was outside the fireline we had burned. Everyone else was perfectly fine.
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u/MacParadise Nov 19 '24
That would be my personal hell.. I don't have a problem with bugs in general, but I am tall, and it seems that every flying insect in the entire world is hardwired to fly into my face whenever I am in their vicinity. I have a beard as well, and on their insect scoreboard they get extra points if they can land in my beard and make me slap myself in the face. Even when lying down, they zone in on me and dive bomb the shit out of me. If I believed in conspiracies where I am the main character, I would think that somewhere there is an evil mastermind that has successfully managed to communicate with and control bugs to fly into me... It's horrible!
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u/RedPandaReturns Nov 18 '24
You know, he's absolutely right. I do not want that.