Fluttershy's Nature Show, Season Two

After a few minutes of waiting in the sand, the ant makes a return, carrying with her a large smattering of oil smeared across her antennae. She hisses as she approaches Fluttershy.

"Oh, how wonderful!" smiles Fluttershy, standing up. She flips her mane back, spreads her feet to be just wider than her shoulders, and holds her arms out to the side. As if she were being frisked, the ant walks up and rubs her antennae all over her legs, arms and torso, coating her in a thin layer of oil. Not so thin that it doesn't make her shirt see-through, and it's made known that she's wearing a green bra.

"Thank you so much," smiles Fluttershy, rubbing herself down for a more even coat. She sniffs at her wrist and hums contentedly. "It smells very woody, like sawdust from cedar and oak, but also kind of sweet, like a maple."

The ant clicks its mandibles a few times.

"Oh, I'm mostly saying that for the camera. It can't smell the scent, so I have to describe it in a way that the viewer can understand."

The ant waves her antennae.

"Well, no, they can't. This is something that is communicated exclusively through vision and sound. They can't taste, smell or feel anything, so I have to describe it to them."

The ant clicks and whistles at her.

"Sure, but that doesn't work for us. We don't have crops. Rather, we have some items called crops, but it's not like yours. The two examples of a crop that come to mind are, first, a food item that is grown in a field, more specifically plants that are edible, and second, an archaic and needlessly cruel piece of leather used to whip horses."

The ant turns her head to the side.

"Oh, gosh... That's a good point. But also, it helps me to prove my point. How could you possibly have context for either leather or horses? You wouldn't know what either of those things are. Unfortunately, I can't really answer those questions without having some kind of context to give you, and not only do I refuse to wear leather, I also don't have any horse pictures or scents or anything to see if you have any familiarity with them. All I can tell you about horses is that they're bigger than that thing."

She indicates to the ant a dumpster larger than a skyscraper in relation to Fluttershy's current size, but would normally sit at a metre and a half tall, a metre thick, and a metre wide, leaving enough room for the wheels and axle. It's the size of a residential trash bin, and that's because it is, but in relation to the size of an ant, that's huge.

"In fact, I'm usually bigger than that," continues Fluttershy. "If I were my normal size, you'd be the size of a horse."

The ant snaps her jaws at her.

"Oh, no, we don't eat them. Well, most of us. They're used for their towing capacity. They're so strong that we can ride on their backs."

The ant hisses.

"Oh, no, I'm not saying that. Relative to your size, you can lift a lot more. I bet I could ride on your back, and you wouldn't feel a thing."

She hisses again.

"Well, if you insist..."

Grabbing her equipment, Fluttershy moves over beside the ant and climbs up onto her back, holding the camera in her arms.

"Okay. Go at whatever speed makes you comfortable."

The ant takes off at a very brisk pace, akin to that of a sprinting horse. However, the ride is much smoother and less bumpy, as the ant has an extra pair of legs and a body shaped like a torpedo. This isn't even the fastest it can go, as evidenced by the fact that it moves faster as it walks up the wall, upside down, and picks up speed as it moves back down the opposite wall. Not just any wall, either; it's a banana peel.

At the other end of the discarded fruit casing, there are more ants going to town on a stack of apple skins that still have large chunks of fruit attached, and carrying the rather large chunks back in a line, making a wide curve around a coffee filter. Despite the fact that there is a candy cane much closer to the anthill, the ants are all staying far away from it.

"I want to take a moment to explain why the ants are avoiding the candy cane," says Fluttershy, turning the camera gradually so that the curved pillar stays in view. "While it is mostly made up of sugar, it's also flavoured with peppermint oil. Anything spicy, bitter or sour is going to deter them. So while they may dig into peppermint sticks if they're desperate, they're less likely to steal spicy food. So, lots of jalapenos and cayenne pepper if you want ants to stay out of your house.

"Of course, if you want ants to come into your house, the easiest way to invite them in is to keep all of the windows open, bake lots of sweets, and leave out bowls of sugarwater. Ants love sweets, especially cakes and cookies. You don't want to seal these if you're trying to draw ants into your home."

As they're about to enter the first chamber, another ant clicks and growls at them.

"Wait, what?"

The ant repeats its message.

"So the queen's not even in there anymore?" Fluttershy sighs. "Well, where is she?"

The ant makes a long series of clicks, then continues on its way.

"Well, thanks for the help, anyway, ma'am." Fluttershy climbs off the ant she was riding and offers up a bit more cake. "For those of you listening, while we were on the way here, the queen died. Luckily, there was another queen ready to take her place."

There's a click from the ant behind her, and Fluttershy crunches some numbers in her head.

"That's twenty-five years. She was alive for just over twenty-five years, which may seem long, as the average ant only lives a year or two, but queens tend to live a lot longer. Twenty-five is pretty high up there, as the highest record we have is twenty-eight years and nine months, but it was pretty clear that her time was coming. So when the old queen died, her chosen successor stepped out for her nuptial flight. If I want to talk to the queen, I'll have to go up there."