Leaf Cutter Ants Hard at Work in Panama
Interesting insects are all around us here in Panama. One of the hardest working is the leaf cutter ant. These guys can destroy a tree in a matter of hours by eating all of the leaves off of it.
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Today was the closing party for our summer camp at the Boys and Girls Club in Caizan, so we stayed after to have some fun with our friends who live there. We were sitting around and noticed that there were some ants hard at work devouring the leaves off of a hibiscus tree!
The ants will travel long distances in order to get leaves off of a plant or tree. What is funny is they will often pass many trees, plants and green grass on their way to another tree. They will do this so often, it wears a path in the dirt or grass.
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These ants are pretty amazing. They will take the leaves back to their nest and pile them up. The decaying leaves then make a fungus that the ants feed off of. They do not actually eat the leaves - they only eat the fungus, so they have to keep feeding the fungus more leaves so more fungus is produced.
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They can also carry a large amount of leaves as well as other ants. We have seen ants carrying a piece of a leaf with an ant on it also carrying another piece of a leaf! They can carry up to 20 times their body weight!
If you ever get a chance to sit and watch them work, I recommend it. They are pretty amazing creatures. If you try to follow them back to their nest, it will pretty much be impossible to track. You can see the lines they make in the ground, but they also dig underground and hide their path pretty well at spots. There are also millions of these guys working at one time - some going and some coming!
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These things caused me the biggest headache trying to get my moringa trees going. I thought it was rabbits considering how much would disappear overnight. The closest thing I have found to a solution is to have a bunch of whatever you are trying to grow, enough that they can't eat it as fast as it recuperates. They seem to eat one thing for a while and then move on to something else.
And isn't there something to do with aphids in their nest involved? Some sort of symbiosis?
I'm not sure about the aphids. I read that the fungus grows and they eat that. If one of the leaves starts killing the fungus, they will stop eating that leaf and find something else. Maybe a fungicide on all the moringa trees?
I had that leaf cutter so hard @apanamamamama
Yes, probably not fun to get rid of.
Interesting little creatures, ants. I don't think I've ever seen any that wear dirt paths in, though! That's really kind of cool! I take it ants in that area are really into salads?
I guess they are! Yeah the paths they make are pretty amazing! These ants are pretty cool...until they destroy your trees!
I remember seeing this kind of ant at a museum when I was a child I could have watched all day while they all filed along one branch and another branch more were heading towards the leaves.
What a fascinating subject thank you for sharing.
:) Yes, they are pretty cool to watch...constantly working to eat every single leaf off the plant. :) Ha.
That is what I call community team work. Lessons learned from them we can accomplish anything. Do they give a nasty bite?
I hear that they hurt pretty bad, but thankfully I haven't had one bite me. They are pretty big though!
Wowzers! That is very interesting.
Can't believe they can carry another ant, carrying another leaf haha! Some ants must just like to take it easy...
Cool post, I wonder why they pick out specific trees. Could they be chosen specifically so that they can produce better fungus? Or fungus with certain qualities? Like some super strength syrum? :P
Yeah, they are pretty cool and strong. I read that if a certain leaf starts to kill their fungus they will stop bringing that kind of leaf in and go find another one. So I don't know if some type of fungicide on the leaves would cause something like that... Apparently they have huge nests too.
Or main ant problem here is the fire ants. They are very hard to kill and when they bite you it burns and leaves a blister.
Oh man! I know all about fire ants. Hate those guys! There are all kinds of ants here in Panama...and none of them are very nice.
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