Ants and their fungus farm

All of you must have, at some time or another, seen a long line of ants rushing along carrying above their heads large pieces of green leaves or flower petals, like little umbrellas. Where are they going? And what will they do with their ‘umbrellas’?

The long line of ants disappears underground into a nest. The nest is wide and deep. Close to a million ants live here. There are many tunnels and rooms, some as long as five metres, and the nest itself has about a thousand entrances.

The ants hurry along the tunnels until they come to a large room. Here there are many white furry-looking patches, each perhaps, as big as the palm of your hand. These patches are ant farms, for these ants are farmers. Yes, real farmers! They grow their own food in ‘fields’ which they water and fertilise and even remove weeds.

The farmer ants are also known as ‘leaf-cutter’ ants and the pieces of leaves and flowers they carry along are used to fertilise their fields. The crop they grow is a fungus, like what you might find on week-old bread. The fungus grows like a mushroom, on a stalk with a knob at the end. The knob is the ants’ food.

In their dark underground fields, it is easy to grow this crop of fungus. The ants chew the bits of leaves until soft and wet and then spread this paste on the fields. This gives their crops water and fertiliser. This is the only food the leaf-cutter ants can eat and they are the only creatures that can grow it. Without this food, they would all die.

When a young, queen leaf-cutter ant leaves to start a new nest, she takes a small amount of fungus with her to start new fields. She takes care of it herself, until her first babies are able to go leaf cutting. Without their fungus farm, the new nest would not survive.

Some easy questions to answer.

How many ants can live in a nest?

Where do the farmer ants make their nests?

Are the farmer ants really farmers?

What is another name for farmer ants?

How does the crop grown by the farmer ants resemble fungus?

How do the ants water their crops?

How is a new nest started?

Who looks after the new nest?