Welcome to get sleepy. The podcast where we listen, we relax and we get sleepy. I'm your host, Thomas. Thanks for tuning in and joining me here at the start of another week. I really hope it will be a positive and enjoyable one for you. Tonight will experience the world on a smaller scale. We'll follow Rosie the end as she explores new territory. And learns about life in her ant colony. I just want to say thank you to Audible for sponsoring tonight's episode, Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment all in one place.

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So now let's prepare to listen to tonight's story with a moment of relaxation first. As she lay in bed and begin to settle in. Acknowledge any last lingering thoughts that might be playing on your mind. Then with a nice deep breath. Gently breathing in. And slowly releasing. You can let go of those thoughts. The important ones can be dealt with tomorrow.

And as you continue with those deep breaths, notice how it brings a greater sense of calm. Perhaps your muscles soften and let go of some of the remaining tension or energy. Held within. And your whole body. Presses a little further into the mattress. Take another breath in. And as you exhale, begin to leave the human world behind, you will soon see it from a new perspective. Let your senses hone in on the little things. A leaf that's fallen to the ground.

Or a twig broken off of a nearby branch. As you noticed these details. The world grows bigger. The ground moves closer and closer to. A nearby tree. Seems to be growing. Slowly, up first. And then faster. Until it towers over your head. It's crown of leaves, seems like a swaying green cloud filling half the sky. And they're just ahead. It's a line of ants crossing your path. They are just as big as you are now.

Let's follow them as they lead us into our story tonight. One by one, the ants march in front of you. When you look down at them from human height, it may seem like they follow each other in a precisely straight line. But being the same size as they are you states, this isn't quite the case. Occasionally, one might fare a little to the left and another a little to the right. But somehow they correct their deviations from the path.

And to get to the same place in about the same amount of time. It's an act of wireless coordination that they carry out using pheromones based in the sense that pioneering ants leave behind to mark the way for their followers. The next one to come along cannot their own stunts to the original path. They can leave behind messages saying things like, yes, I went this way. Or watch out if need be. To others who follow in their footsteps, the yes and feel is right.

In contrast, the watchout cent isn't bad, but it just feels off. A bit like hearing a scratchy record when you expect crystal clear sound. They do this so that a path that leads somewhere good gets reinforced over time. And more ants in the colony, no, to go there to. A less helpful path will soon get drowned out. Slowly fading away until it's forgotten. As your eyes follow this particular line of hands, you noticed that some are going a different direction from the others.

That's because these tanks are on a constant search for resources and new places to nest. These little creatures don't stop when they encounter an obstacle. For example, a barrier like a tree trunk might require them to turn first one way and back the other. And then a third way, if they want to get to where they're going and somehow they manage these complicated directions. How do they know to do that? You might wonder this is just one of the many curious details in the lives of Hans.

While the ground might look flat from above here at scale, there are far more ups and downs to life. And see the world through such different times and have such different capabilities, but it's worth trying to imagine things from their perspective, you do that today by following one young and as she leaves the colony and explores the outside world for the first time. Your guide is Rosie, a worker at. And you see her emerging from her colony just ahead, she's a little smaller than the other ants and she looks even more so next to the golden mound of sand that looms over you both like a pyramid.

That is the entrance to Rosie's home. Looking closely, you can see how her exoskeleton shines dark red and black. The light reflects from it and you can see how clean she is, she may live in the dirt, but she isn't carrying any on her, you take a moment to appreciate the glow that seems to emanate from her body. Rosie has a large, dark compound, is too skinny, and when I stand in front of them where your nose would be.

They fast point up and then move forward at an angle. Roses, mandibles are below them. She uses these to carry things to eat and to help build maintain the nest. The next section of Rosie's body is where her six legs are attached. If she were a queen, her wings would also be in this spot. Races like smooth in elegant synchrony, providing her with a stable platform. In a wild and complex environment. When Rosie moves, she seems to lead and explore with her antennae and mandibles, sometimes she pauses to examine objects with them, while humans often rely on sound and sight.

Rosie's wound is all about touch and smell. But despite these differences, there are many things that humans and ants have in common. Rosie grew up deep inside the colony. Fast as a pupa and then a larva. When she was young, other watched over her, bringing her food and ensuring that she always stayed at the right temperature. It wasn't exactly nursery school, but she was taken care of the way human infants and toddlers are to. Once she'd grown up into a mature and she began contributing to the colony herself by caring for her younger sisters and the acclaim queen as she grew stronger and more experienced, Rosie worked on other tasks in the nest, like digging and cleaning tunnels.

All that time, Rosie's world was dark, it was also very busy. Some colonies have as many ants inside them as there are people in a big city. Just like humans, Rosie mostly stuck to the same part of her Colonie, her neighborhood. Moving between the chambers where she hatched and grew up. As she matured, she learned new jobs that took her to different parts of the growing colony. Each new stage brought its own wonder at first.

Followed by a comfortable routine. Today, Rosie climbed through the tunnels to the colonies entrance to get a taste of the world beyond. The entrance itself is a piece of architecture, from the outside, it looks like a dome. Hard working, and that came before her, built it up out of mud and soil until it had a solid outer shell. Special vents allow air and dance to pass in and out. They help control the temperature deep within the structure.

So it's just right for the delicate tillawi, the crucial Fungai gardens and the queen who gave birth to the entire colony. Now, Rosie takes a few halting steps as she gets ready to explore outside the colony for the first time. Here, her senses are on overload. This walk will be an adventure out into the wild wild. As you follow her, remember the first time you left home by yourself? For Rosie, this moment comes with a feeling of contentment.

Her world is growing with each step. Rose's first instinct is to follow her antennae, which indicate a strongly marked path. When she was inside the nest, she listened to chemical instructions from the other ones, so it feels like the right thing to do here as well. But now Rosie is also noticing new sensations. She experiences the levels of brightness and darkness that are much more intense than anything she knew within the colony. When Rosie gazes at something, her eyes are more sensitive to motion than shape.

If the blades of grass around her don't move, she doesn't find them interesting to look at. But if an insect or bird swoops down near her. They will have her attention in an instant. Right now, Rosie is safe. There aren't any predators in this environment. Instead, she is marveling at something she's seeing for the first time, the sky. It's strange to her. But it has a big, bright object that makes for a handy reference point.

You might call this the sun. But to Rosie, it's like a signpost and she's less afraid of getting lost because of it. All around her, at around hussle, in and out of the nest, Rosie bumps into some of them and they scoot ahead. Other ants bump into her from behind when this happens. Rosie get some extra strong dose of the pheromones at the other end is wearing. It's like getting a whiff of another person's perfume when you run into them on the sidewalk.

Soon, Rosie realizes what she's supposed to be doing. She trots just fast enough to stay ahead of the fence behind her and not step on the heels of the ones in front. She's not sure where she's going or why. But she's driven by something deep inside her. Rosie recalls her antenna in the air cautiously, they serve the same purpose as your nose, ears and even your hands. They can detect chemical signals and vibrations. And of course, she can use them to feel her way around obstacles.

A gentle breeze hums over the line of hands, enticing them with sound and scent as they march toward some tasty flower petals. Every now and then, Rosie still bumps into a nun coming from the opposite direction. Many of these ants are carrying little slices of lilac flowers. When that happens, the two gently disentangle themselves and continue on their way. Before long, Rosie reaches the place where the flowers are. Their petals flop loosely away from the pots. Ants are crawling all over, prying off the patios and tearing them apart.

Rosie decides that she'd like to join in. Using her antennae and mandibles, she makes contact with a petal. She picks it up and feels how easily it bends. She doesn't find it heavy. But its size and floppiness would make it too hard to carry home. So instead, Rosie grasps a cold edge with her mandibles and squeezes them together, slicing the pattern into more manageable pieces as she bites the heavier part of the petal tangles to the ground.

And Rosie adjusts her four legs to better hold the smaller part. While she works, her antennae absorb the rich scent of the flower. Which is sweeter now than when it was still attached to the plant. It's the same vibrant aroma that attracted her sister's hair in the first place. As the lilac overwhelms her senses, she finishes slicing off a piece to take home. She holds it up with her mandibles. From a distance, she looks like a tiny sailboat with a pink flower petal for a sail.

Rosie recalls her antennae again. And notices a path of pheromones. This time, she had her own little contribution to the trail as she starts walking back to the nest. She's getting the hang of her job one step at a time. As the line nears the colony entrance, Rosie notices motion nearby. Other columns of ants are marching to and fro in different directions. Perhaps she will go and help them after depositing the flour inside the colony. She can fill through her feet that the ground is humming with the motion of all her sisters.

Because she was born here, it feels like home. She slows down as she and the other gathering ants approach the entrance. Now there are more bumps and sniffs with antennae, and the incoming and outgoing ones must be more patient with each other. The air is warmer here, reminding Rosie how the nest protects its inhabitants. She scrambles through the dark, guided by chemical pathways and carries the pink petal deeper and deeper inside the colony. She walks past forks and tunnels that thrum with Morant's.

Eventually, she reaches a chamber filled with petals and other plant parts. Here she comes on top of the pile and deposits the lilac cutting. This storehouse of food is of great value to the colony. But the ants don't eat the petals themselves. Instead, the flowers nourish a garden of fungi. Which they later feed to their young. In other words, Beyonce are farming. The fungi are prone to parasites and the ants have developed ways of protecting their gardens from these tiny invaders.

Rosie watches as God and Arantes pick up spores in their mouths and gently put them down elsewhere in the garden. In the process, Beyonce exposed the spores to a friendly bacteria that can stop the parasite in its tracks. This way, the newly protected fungi can continue to grow. Knowing all is well in the underground garden, Rosie can return to the outside world. Once she steps through one of the holes in the dome, her, I notice a particularly strong pheromone trail, so she begins to follow it.

Up ahead, her eyes see a looming shape. You would call it a tree. But to Rosie, it's just another potential resource. The column of ants she is following head skyward as they explore the vertical tree trunk. They're attracted by the leaves, which are putting on the branches as she climbs, Rosie uses the tiny claw like parts of her feet to grasp the cracks in the tree bark. To her, what's underfoot looks more like a ladder than the smooth surface, you would see if you were still human size.

The tree is solid beneath her feet. But it's a long, thin bounce, swaying gently in the breeze. Especially out near the very tips. As Rosy travels on to the branches. She begins to feel the move. At first, it's barely noticeable. For a moment, she questions her own senses. But the further out she goes, the more she relaxes into the rhythm of the motion. The other runs around Rosie aren't distracted by the swaying of the tree.

In fact, the motion is enjoyable a little this way, a little that way. It gives her a bit more spring in her step. This is nothing like a life underground. Up here, even with the protection of the canopy around her, the air feels livelier and flows faster than down below. Light filters through the leaves, creating a patchwork of pulses that changes with every gust. Rosie notices that some of her sister foraging ants have even smaller ants riding on their backs.

Suddenly, she sees a tiny fly approach, one of the foragers, and try to lay eggs on it, but the little ant perched on top fence it off. It's an astonishing display of teamwork. The smaller ones keep their bigger systems clean and safe. In return, the larger grants bring food back home for the colonies fungus farm. Rosie is lucky to be part of such a sophisticated group. She and her sisters all look out for each other in their own ways.

Rosie continues her upward march along the branch until she's attracted by a particularly pungent leaf. She pauses and takes in its syrupy fragrance. It seems like just the thing for the garden back home. So she takes a few careful steps up the yellow green stem and along the edge of the leaf. At an especially tasty looking vein, Rosie starts clipping away. Since it's her second time, she gets a little more ambitious and tries to carry a slightly larger piece of leaf.

It's a bit stiffer than the flower petal she got earlier, so it should be easier to manage by herself. But Rosie wasn't counting on the gusty wind up here in the branches. All of a sudden, her feet lose their grip. Not to worry, though, Rosie will be fine. She's just taking a slightly different route down out of the treetop. As she slips, she clutches the leaf and her mandibles even harder than before. Together, Rosie and her leaf flutter down through the branches.

A bit like a Maypo seat spinning in the air. It's marvelous and confusing all at once. Before she knows it, her feet find a grip on a lower bound. How powerful exoskeleton protects her from harm and then her mandibles, Rosie is still holding on tight to the leaf she harvested. But here, separated from the line of ants, she followed up the trunk, Rosie can't smell any chemical pathways. She packs up her antennae and tries to sniff out any signals from her sister's.

She takes a few steps forward. And a few steps back, but doesn't detect any familiar sense. Then she scans the sky with her eyes. But only sees an unfamiliar pattern of light. It's hard to tell where the sun is. Rosie takes a few steps up, as she had been doing before the wind carried her down. But then she realizes that she no longer needs to search for food. She already has the leaf. So she turns around grasping it carefully in her mandibles.

Sometimes the wind tugs on the leaf. But now she holds it parallel to the costs to keep it from turning into a parasail again. At this moment, Rosie is by herself on the branch. Nobody bumps into her. And she isn't sure how to get back to her sister's. But she can use her senses to discover the path. She continues along the length of the branch. Finding reassurance and how it sways less and less the further down she walks.

Rosie realizes she must be getting closer to solid ground, her antennae are very alert to all the new smells on this part of the tree. She detects the scent of other animals and wonders who else lives here. After a few moments, Rosie reaches a junction. How Branch seems to rejoin the main trunk here. They faint, she begins to smell a handful of familiar scents, she turns and follows them. They remind her of her next. They remind her of food.

And they remind her of home. Sure enough, after a few steps, one of her sisters gently bumps into her. Another thing collides with her on the other side, Rosie is standing right in the middle of the chemical path she used to walk up the tree in the first place. She makes it the rest of the way down the tree and back onto the patch of ground that leads to her next. Down here, things that once loomed large, like blades of grass and rocks seem small in comparison to the tree through which she fluttered.

Rosie has a whole new perspective on the world. Just like you. She's no longer worried about getting separated from the group. Rosie knows that she can explore, she can walk this way and that and maybe even take a short flight. And still follow her many senses back home. As she steps onto the path. Rosie feels like a queen. She is stronger now and so is her community. When other runners bump into her and seem lost like she once was.

Rosie knows to give them a gentle nudge in the right direction. She carries her life back through the entrance and into the bustling colony inside, she searches for an available chamber and deposits her extra large MIF. For the moment, how work is done. Lulled by a sense of security and satisfaction. Rosie decides it's time for a nap. Once she is rested, her antennae will start. As she regains her bearings. Then she'll walk out of the chamber and rejoin the hum and rush of her Colonie.

Nearby, she feels the comforting presence of her sister's. God in France quietly look after the Fungai. Forages enter and exit the chamber, bringing more food. And every now and then, a nurse enters to collect a few more saws so she can feed the young. Surrounded by the familiar environment of home, Rosie relaxes her body and allows herself to drift off to sleep.