Anita
Leaf Cutter Ants (Atta spp)
About me
| Basic Info | Home: | Yo dudes! For all your ant needs check us out near the bottom of the good ol' USA and in South and Central America as well. |
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| Size: | Tiny! I'm not much bigger that the size of a fingernail, but our underground colonies can grow to more than 30 metres. It can get pretty busy down there, let me tell you. I'm what you chaps call a soldier ant – we're the biggest of all the ants, with large heads and jaws – we protect the colony so don't mess! | |
| Favourite foods: | Just like you human dudes, we also farm our own food – oooh arrr! You see, my harvester ant brothers and sisters (they're strong chaps) cut out bits of leaf and carry them back to the nest, where the magic of the gardener ant happens – they chew the leaves up and turn them into a kind of compost, which then grows a special kind of fungus, which feeds everyone in the whole colony! So clever, even if I do say so myself. | |
| Environment: | Yep, basically when we're not out collecting the leaves, we're carrying them back to the nest on the forest floor – busy, busy busy!!! | |
| Sounds like: | SCUTTLE SCUTTLE!!! |
| Further Info |
Ants which perform different jobs may look different from one another but are all still members of the same species. Each group of ant is referred to as a caste. Soldier ants are the biggest with large heads and jaws and their job is to protect the colony with these weapons. Harvester ants cut and carry the leaves, sentinel ants ride on the leaves cleaning them and looking out for danger and gardner ants live inside the nest and look after the fungus gardens where the ants grow their food and also look after the larvae. The queen lays all the eggs. Harvester ants cut out large sails of leaf, which can weigh up to 10 times their own body weight (imagine carrying 10 people around in your mouth!), and carry them back to the nest. All the ants in the colony are female and the daughters of the queen. The queen ant is the only ant in the colony that lays eggs, when she dies the colony will eventually die too. Once a year she will produce a special batch of eggs, some of which will be male and some of which will be new queens. These ants have wings and fly from the nest. Each new queen will be mated by several males on her maiden flight, she the stores the sperm within her body preserving it for use over the hopefully many years to come. |
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| Useful links |