Farmer Ants: Leafcutters Don’t Eat The Leaves!

We saw a lot of interesting animals on a hike around the base of the Arenal Volcano yesterday, but perhaps the most interesting was the Leaf-Cutter Ant, which is a voracious farmer of forest leaves —- that it doesn’t eat! We saw several long lines of ants carrying a trail of leaf pieces into their underground mounds. 

Video: NOT Dave Matthew’s Band

Amazingly, the ants take the leaves to growing chambers where they cover the leaves in their own spit/vomit so that they begin to decompose. As the leaves decompose, they start to grow a fungus that is the primary food source for colony, which can consist of more than five milllion members! They never eat the leaves at all!

Even more amazing, some of the worker ants have a unique anti fungal spit that they secrete to kill other types of fungus so only their unique fungal food will grow. Talk about a complex farming society! They’ve been doing this for over 20 million years!

External sources: https://ticotimes.net/2015/04/03/the-secret-lives-of-leaf-cutting-ants

Documentary: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVrCAFq1VU

Dave Matthew’s Band - Ants Marching

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