Scientists reveal ants as fungus farmers

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This photo shows the head of the defensive soldier caste of the leaf-cutting ant Atta laevigata which lives in the savannahs of northern and central South America. The mature nests of Atta laevigata are huge containing many millions of worker ants th ...
This photo shows the head of the defensive soldier caste of the leaf-cutting ant Atta laevigata, which lives in the savannahs of northern and central South America. The mature nests of Atta laevigata are huge, containing many millions of worker ants that forage across many acres of land. A colony of Atta laevigata can live for 20 years and weigh as much and consume as much grass as an adult cow. Photo by Eugenia Okonski/Smithsonian Institution

It turns out ants, like humans, are true farmers. The difference is that ants are farming fungus. Entomologists Ted Schultz and Seán Brady at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have published a paper in the March 24 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, providing new insight into the agricultural abilities of ants and how these abilities have evolved throughout time.


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