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Leafcutter ants: “Heroes of Labour”

07/11/2024

In the Magic Mountain, the leaf cutter ants can be seen carrying leaves with true ant diligence to the mushroom garden deep in their home. These animals actually cultivate fungi, because unlike leaves, they are able to digest fungi. Our visitors can admire the entire process.

Leafcutter ant
Leafcutter ant

Inside the Great Rock, a spacious exhibition complex has been established, which is part of the Magic Mountain and is named the Colony Gallery. Among other interesting animals, the general public can also see leaf-cutter ants. These ants got their name because with their powerful jaws they cut off pieces of plant leaves, both small and large, certainly sizable compared to their own body size, and then, almost holding them like a sail, they carry them deep into their underground tunnel system.

The intriguing question is, what do they need the leaves for? The answer may seem obvious at first: they surely eat them. The truth, however, is that these ants are unable to digest a good portion of the substances in the leaves, so they are also unable to utilize cellulose. Therefore, they do not eat leaves, but mushrooms they have grown themselves. The leaves are pleasant for serving as a substrate for mushroom cultivation.

Essentially, it can be said that leaf-cutter ants perform agricultural work to ensure their survival and provide the necessary sustenance. Of course, with appropriate division of labour, as befits an insect community that forms a state. The larger workers are the leaf collectors. The little ones work in the mushroom garden, and of course there are soldiers providing protection, as well as a queen in the colony. In fact, the leaf cutter ant species seen in our Zoo, the eight-spined cutter ant (Acromyrmex octospinosus) native to Central and South America, happens to be polygynous, which means that there are multiple queens in each colony.

In nature, usually only a part of the life and diligent work of leaf-cutter ants can be observed, the part that takes place above the ground. That is, more precisely, as the ants cut off the leaves and then carry them home, often covering a surprisingly long distance compared to their own size. The same can be seen here at the Magic Mountain, as the ants collect leaves from glass-walled terrariums, then carry their “loot” home through a tunnel system made of transparent pipes. With us, however, you can also see what happens underground in nature. After all, the space accommodating the mushroom garden is also a glass-walled terrarium, where the ants can maintain constant temperature and humidity. Therefore, visitors can observe the dirty white colonies of cultivated mushrooms and the busy ants there.

The type of fungus cultivated by ants can only survive in such places, thanks to the diligent care of these insects, and does not occur at all under other circumstances.

The eight-spined leafcutter ant, of course, is just one of the many arthropods that can be seen in our Zoo and Botanical Garden. In our Zoo, for more than a hundred years, it has been an important collection management guideline to present a great variety of many different animal groups, such as amphibians, various fish, and invertebrates, including arthropods, and within that, insects, in addition to the many mammals, birds, and reptiles – diverging from the practice of many other zoos. These are presented in great diversity and in large numbers of species. After all, our goal is to convey one of the main characteristics of the living world—its diversity—to the audience, ideally presenting it through the widest possible cross-section.