Mikey Bustos: The YouTuber Who Found Success With Ants
I never really think about ants in the way you probably do, and I only notice them when I’ve accidentally left a piece of fruit out or something like that. Their existence is essentially invisible to most people, I think. Is there anything that we, as humans, can learn from ants and should take more notice of?
Yes, essentially in a lot of ways ants are us. We humans share a very similar lifestyle with ants, as we both live in large groups, some of us in cities of millions. As a result, ants and people have to deal with similar problems that we humans do, like garbage disposal, construction, distribution of food, communication, democracy (yes, they vote on things to do in the colony), waste management, sustainability. Some ants, like leafcutter ants, are farmers; others are skilled hunters. Many other ant species rear plant insects in which they “milk” for their honeydew as a food source, like ant dairy cows.
The parallels between humans and ants are truly numerous, and the very fact that ants have been around for hundreds of millions of years indicates that they’ve been able to solve their problems in very effective ways, and we humans, who comparatively have only been around for a few hundred years, can take a page from our evolutionary “ant elders”.
What was your upbringing like? Were you interested in insects as a child or did that interest develop much later? Did someone show you the magic of ant-keeping or was that a discovery you made yourself?
I was the five-year-old kid arriving at family parties wanting nothing else but to go into my uncles’/cousins’ yard to turn over stones and look for invertebrates. I had all the taxonomic orders of insects memorized by Grade 4, and made it my business to create an insect zoo exhibit in my parents’ basement for all my friends in the neighborhood. Literally obsessed! In terms of ant keeping, the moment I read an article in a now vintage National Geographic magazine on Australian bull ants kept in a simulated ant nest, I just knew that ants were my ultimate favorite thing!
I imagine you have inspired a lot of young people to get into ant-keeping. How have you personally noticed your influence over the last several years? Have other ant channels emerged because of AntCanada?
I started my YouTube channel back in 2009 because I felt serious ant keeping needed to be bigger, particularly in North America. Since then, I’ve completely marveled at the growth of the ant keeping community. There are many ant Youtube channels out there, lots of online ant-keeping groups, and every time I upload a video I read many comments from ant-keepers who share stories and news of their pet ant colonies and how they say the channel inspired them to get started in the hobby. Many of them share videos of their ants in the AC products my team and I designed at AntsCanada.
I take the time to really take it all in for continued inspiration to keep making YouTube videos and keep innovating for the hobby. I’m truly humbled by it all and love to see others discovering the joys of the hobby.
What’s so exciting about ants and ant-keeping? When you look upon these tiny animals in their tiny world, how do you feel?
I find spying on the workings of an ant colony is like watching a city of people from a God’s-Eye-View. I think that is the root of ant keeper gratification. You watch nature unfold before your eyes and witness the ants evolve as a colony over time, utilizing their resources (which you, as their invisible god, must give them), leaving their garbage and dead for you to clean up, and it all totally fulfills people’s inherent need to care for life, and get nothing back in return but the sole gratification of witnessing a society live out their best lives. In this way, I feel ant-keepers enjoy this construction of a utopia, an ideal and perfect world all in the safety of a simple ant farm.
Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, recently created an artwork for you, as he and his son are fans of your channel. Have any other celebrities reached out to you? Has your popularity surprised you at all?
Haha! Yeah, a few celebrities have shouted out the channel like Felicia Day, and a handful of online celebs I adore! I never imagined ants would be our connection. It blows me away every time!
Which one of your passions came first — music or ant-keeping? Is there ever a crossover where your skills and talents in one field help the other?
Haha! They happened simultaneously. I was always an entertainer, so it even crossed over into comedy, creative writing, acting out skits and imagined movie scenes on my dad’s camcorder as a kid. I think my interest in entertainment has definitely helped me for the AntsCanada YouTube channel, because with every video, I tackle the challenge of teaching people potentially boring, scientific concepts through stories and a cinematic way that captivates even the non-ant lovers. Music also plays a very big part of the storytelling in my ant videos by way of sound tracking, which my team and I take our time to perfect in each episode. Sci-comm and entertainment definitely go hand-in-hand.
How do you manage all of your ant colonies, as well as keeping up with a busy YouTube channel (e.g., editing videos, creating new content)?
A great team. That’s the secret. I have a team helping me with caring for the ant colonies and other pets, editors, customer service team to answer emails, graphic designers, etc. AntsCanada started from 1 person in 2009, and have since grown to a working ant colony ourselves. Haha!
I noticed your fire ant videos are the most popular. But what have been your personal favorite ant species (or colonies)?
Yes, the fire ants are among my favorites — as well as the weaver ants! There’s nothing like them, and I find them to be one of the most beautiful ant species in the world. In March, my team and I stumbled upon a mysterious species of wild ant (Meranoplus bicolor) in my yard. After identification in the lab, it turns out we were the first to discover the species existed in my country, so we accidentally helped contribute to ant science! They’ll also be my favorite and I’m trying to look for a queen so I can try keeping an ant colony of them!
How do you strike a balance between providing entertaining content but still wanting to educate your viewers? With over 10,000 ant species existing in the world, are you constantly educating yourself as well?
Yeah, that’s the fun challenge as a nature videomaker. I call our videos (which are essentially sci-comm in nature) “Edutainment”. We do make sure every video has a riveting story or dialogue, good cinematography/visuals, sound design, etc. so we can keep our audience interested/engaged, while at the same time, we do our best to teach the viewers about ants along the way, which means we need to research thoroughly, fact check, reference, and consult professionals in the field, etc. Sometimes we nail the formula and the video trends, and at other times we add too much of either and the video doesn’t do, as well. Regardless, I love every video we create and appreciate the impact it has on those who have become fans of the channel.
I am constantly learning along the way with our viewers, named the AC Family. The channel is a very real-time channel, so we often are making cool discoveries together as a community! Humans have barely scratched the surface in terms of what there is to know about ants. We’ve already made three novel ant scientific discoveries this year!
What’s next for you?
I don’t know, but I would love for ant keeping and global ant reverence to grow. With earnings from AntsCanada, I am reinvesting back into the hobby, designing and innovating better ant farm products for the ant-keeping community, creating better content for our YouTube audience, and have even recently bought an 82-acre plot of land which partially is going to remain wild and untouched, so native ants there can flourish without having to worry about pesticides or habitat destruction — both of which threaten the world’s biodiversity.
I may possibly turn a section of it into an ant zoo/conservation park, much like when I was a kid making exhibits for my neighborhood friends. My ultimate dream is to discover a new undocumented species of ant and name it after our YouTube community: “ ______(genus)_____ acfamilius”. We are currently awaiting the identification of an ant that was sent to the lab last month that just might be a new ant species. We’ll see! Ant love forever!
