About the life of the leaf cutter ants

When leaf cutter ants first caught the eye of a scientist, they decided that insects collect pieces of leaves in order to hide them in an anthill and eat there. At the same time, even the mechanism for cutting leaves and their transportation was fascinatingly interesting and has already attracted the attention of a large number of specialists.

But then it turned out that this was only the beginning of an enormous and complex process of processing and using leaves as a raw material for a real farm. And so complex that a small ant leaf cutter for a long time became a real sensation in science ...

 

General description of leaf cutter ants

Ants leaf cutters are apparently not remarkable. They have a small brown body - from 5 to 20 mm, depending on the caste - and long legs, especially characteristic of the ants often moving through the trees.

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In the ant leaf cutter there are 7 castes of these ants, which perform 29 different functions.

A distinctive external feature of an ant leaf cutter is its powerful hooked jaws, with which it nibbles the rather hard leaves of tropical trees.

These jaws are present in all castes, including the uterus. Powerful muscles are required to set them in motion, so the head of the leaf cutter is also quite large.

The video shows how ants leaf cutters gnaw a green leaf.

 

Video: leaf cutter ants gnawing a piece of leaf

Noteworthy is the difference in size between the different castes of leaf-cutting ants. Those individuals that are busy in the anthill care for eggs, farms and uterus are small - only about 5-6 mm long in body. But their soldiers are huge. Compared with the "home" caste, these are real tanks: they can be 3-4 times longer than working ants, and by mass - several dozen times. Their uterus is even larger and sometimes weighs 700 times more than the smallest members of the colony!

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Not every anthill near leaf cutters has its own soldiers. Only very powerful colonies, more than half a million individuals, can afford such luxury: a smaller family simply cannot feed its defenders.

The uterus of all leaf cutters is very different from other individuals very powerful and large breasts. Before mating, it has wings, but after summer it bites off its own and proceeds to the formation of a new colony. And here the most interesting begins ...

 

Agricultural activities of leaf cutter ants

Leaves are not needed by leaf cutter ants for direct consumption: these insects cannot assimilate hard plant fibers. Therefore, the leaves are diligently chewed by a special caste of ants, after which the mass mixed with saliva is stored in the chambers, in which a constant microclimate is maintained, and is infected with a special fungus. It is this mushroom that is the food for both adult ants and larvae.

It is not surprising that the leaf cutter ants have another name: mushroom ants. At the same time, the ants themselves do not eat the fruit bodies of the mushrooms - only the mycelium is good for them, spider-web spreading in and above the mass of the forage. Fruit bodies are an extra waste of mycelium resources, and their insects, caring for the farm, bite at the stage of setting.

On a note

In the saliva of leaf leaf ants, there are several antibiotics that destroy parasitic fungi and bacteria that can destroy the main mycelium. But ants also have allied bacteria — special actinobacteria that suppress the development of a parasitic fungus on a mycelium.

In general, the ant and the fungus “found each other” for a long time: today there are almost 200 species of ants in the world that grow mushrooms in one way or another. Some ants grow mushrooms in an anthill on dead insects and feces, but these species are considered the most primitive. But leaf cutters have adapted to use as the raw material for the farm the most affordable and easy-to-process plant material.

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Leaf cutter ants in their habitats are considered serious pests: a large anthill is capable of literally barring several trees in the area. Therefore, on the farms of Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil with the advent of leaf cutters are diligently struggling.

 

Device anthill small mushroom growers

Although leaf cutter ants are tied tightly to trees as leaf sources, they settle their anthills almost exclusively underground.It is rather simple to explain: only under a layer of earth, they are protected from temperature drops, to which mushrooms are very sensitive, and from excessive exposure to moisture.

The anthill itself in a vertical section looks like a huge egg. In the very center of it, the furthest from any dangerous factors, is the chamber with the uterus. It is surrounded by incubators in which eggs and larvae develop. All external chambers are farms in which ants grow mushrooms. As some researchers note, the analogy with the egg here is not only figurative, but also functional - in the center of it is the main reproducing organ, and on the periphery - food stores.

In the colony of leaf cutters ants can live up to several million individuals, and the entire anthill can be several meters in size.

Some leaf cutters make heaps similar to those organized by our forest ants. But the heart of the anthill still remains underground.

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Some species of leaf cutter ants take out the garbage from the anthill outside, others store it in special garbage chambers.

In addition to humans, leaf cutter ants have only one serious enemy - one species. nomadic ants, practically not running out to the surface, it attacks the leaf cutters anthills and ruins them, eating both ants, and their broods, and mushrooms.

 

Reproduction of leaf cutter ants

Leafcutter ants breed like other species. At some point life of an anthillUsually tied to the season of the year, working ants feed the larvae with the addition of special substances that stimulate the development of genital individuals. Males and females capable of breeding have wings, and after reaching their number in an anthill of a certain critical value, they fly out, swarm and mate.

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In some species of leaf cutter ants, working ants can lay eggs if the uterus has died. In some species, males incapable of reproduction come out of such eggs, in others - normal individuals. The rescue of such an anthill will be a fertilized female who happened to be near asylum, who happened to be nearby. But cases of such meetings are extremely rare. Polygyny same - the presence of several queens in an anthill - leaf cutters is not peculiar.

When swarming, each female mates with several males to collect a sufficient amount of semen.

After swarming, which usually lasts one day, the males and females scatter around the surroundings of the anthill. Males die, and each female in a convenient place digs a hole 30 cm deep and begin to lay eggs. Immediately she folds several found and chewed leaves that infect a piece of mycelium.

The female feeds the first larvae with trophic eggs and a new mycelium postponed by it. She herself at this time does not eat and survives due to their fat reserves and wings gnawed. For 40-60 days, she displays the first working individuals, who begin to perform all the "routine" operations for her.

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At the bottom of the head, the uterus has a special pocket in which it puts a piece of mycelium before departure from the parent anthill. This stock will provide further normal development of the farm.

Larvae of leaf-cutting ants are not able to feed on their own, and adult ants feed them with fungal hyphae.

Despite the complexity of the social structure of ants, the leaf cutters, although with some difficulties, may well be contained in captivity. For example, you can look at a large ant hill in the insect of the Moscow Zoo, where birch leaves and roses are specially frozen for ants for the winter.Yes, and many fans manage to successfully grow leaf cutter ants at home. In general, leaf cutter ants are exclusively inhabitants of the tropics of South America and several Caribbean islands. Relatives have not yet been able to adapt to the temperate climate.

 

Interesting video: hordes of leaf-cutting ants rush home with collected leaves