Leaf-cutter ant: detailed description, photo, lifestyle

Leafcutter ants are a special, unique species. What are the features of the type of leaf cutter? Description of insects and appearance. Diet and growing food. Relationships with other insects. Division of the colony into castes. Benefit for nature. Is there a danger to humans?

We all know fairly distant concepts about ants and their way of life. There are a huge number of species of ants, each of which has its own characteristics. But there is a special evolutionarily advanced species - leaf-cutter ants. They represent a colony of insects that belongs to a complex social group.

Common insects

These ants live in Central and South America. Their appearance is notable for the fact that on the muzzle there is a pair of large and strong jaws. They are hard and sharp, slightly curved inward. They have several notches on the inner edge. These devices help the leafcutter ant to gnaw the foliage of tropical trees. The head of this insect is large. That's how it should be. After all, it would be difficult to hold massive jaws on a small head. Leaf-cutter ants are not very large in size. They reach 5-20 millimeters in length. Their body color is brown. The uteruses differ in their size. They are large, with a wide, developed chest. There is a special pocket at the bottom of the leaf-cutter ant's queen's head. Before mating, she grows wings, and after it gnaws them off herself.

A very dangerous species; adult specimens have a sting and venom containing the alkaloid solenopsin. Adult ants are small in size, reaching a length of only 2-4 mm. The antennae consist of 10 segments, ending in a club of 2 segments.

The anthill looks like a small earthen mound up to half a meter high.

Ginger

One of the most common types of forest ants. It has a fairly large body size - from 4 to 9 mm. Its abdomen and back of its head are black, its chest and the rest of its head are orange. They are capable of building huge anthill nests that reach a height of 2 meters. Earth and food scraps are used for construction. Females do not leave the nest and do not form new colonies. They replace the old queen when she dies.

Black-brown

It is considered one of the common species of forest ants. Body sizes are average, in workers 5-8 mm, in females - 1-2 mm. The body is painted black and gray.

Families of this species are small in number. New females move out and build their own colonies.

An anthill looks like a low mound, although it is more often located under stones.

Lifestyle

These are fairly developed insects, whose colonies represent a rather complex system of relationships. One group is divided into seven castes. Each caste has its own work, performs and is responsible for it. This in turn affects the development of the insect and its appearance. There are ants of the smallest sizes that perform the work of caring for eggs, larvae and the queen. Their size does not exceed 5 mm, and it is worth mentioning that they never leave the nest.

At the stage of pregnancy and laying eggs, the female takes care of the offspring independently, she cares for and feeds them, which gives her the opportunity to regulate the number of individuals in the caste. One clutch contains about 60 eggs. The entire colony consists only of female goosebumps that do not have the ability to conceive. Males are born from unfertilized eggs, fertilize females and die immediately.

Their home is a huge underground anthill, the diameter of which reaches 10 meters. This whole structure resembles the shape of an egg; in the very center are the uterus and offspring. The rest of the area is divided into separate chambers, these are a kind of farms where the ants grow their own mushrooms. It's hard to believe, but one anthill can contain more than a million individuals. Such dwellings have a lot of exits; they serve not only as convenient passages, but also perform a security function.

These ants have excellent contact with other types of insects, and some of them live in their anthills. But this is not hospitality at all, but just a mutually beneficial relationship. For example, a fairly frequent guest and resident of such anthills is the cockroach, namely the Texas anthill. As you can tell from the name of the cockroach, it really loves goosebumps. The fact is that this cockroach feeds on the remains of food that is on the ants, eats it and thereby cleans the ant. This is a beneficial relationship that allows two species of insects to exist together.

In addition to cockroaches, leaf cutters also cooperate with other species, such as dung beetles and predatory ants. In this case, they perform the role of guarding the anthill and the entire colony. Regarding dung beetles, they can do just fine without leaf cutters, but since the ants depend on them, they can force dung beetles into their home.

Unfortunately, there are also those that pose a great danger to the colony. For example, nomadic ants can attack a colony, which leads to the destruction of the anthill and quite serious losses. They attack to take away food, in this case mushrooms. Despite the fact that leaf cutters are quite large in size, have a sting and a caste of fighters, the so-called soldiers, they lose in battle because they are quite weak individuals.

Therefore, leaf cutters share their home with ants of the species Megalomyrmex symmetochus, which cannot be called peaceful and harmless at all. They are among those individuals that rob anthills, but leaf cutters voluntarily share food, which allows them to exist peacefully. These predators are significantly smaller in size, but in battle they are very dangerous.

original name

To better understand the process of creating a new colony of ants, we need to go back to why leaf-cutter ants got their name. Observing these insects, people concluded that they feed on plants. This happened because the leafcutter ant, common in America, destroys plant leaves. If the colony gets down to business, then in a short period of time only branches and a trunk will remain from the tree. What do they do with the leaves? Are eating? This assumption turned out to be incorrect. Yes, indeed, leaf-cutter ants, the description of which you will find in this article, chew leaves, but not in order to eat.

Nutrition

The basis of nutrition for these ants is a symbiotic relationship with fungi. The grown mushroom itself does not serve as ant food. It gnaws at the very base, and the released drops

leaf cutters lick thoroughly. The saliva of leaf-cutter ants contains antibiotics that can destroy fungi and bacteria that destroy the main mycelium. And the presence of special actinobacteria suppresses the development of parasitic fungus directly on the mycelium. The mycelium itself resembles a sponge containing a lot of nutrients.

After some time, hardened nodules form in these places, which cover the entire surface of the nutrient substrate with thick and transparent bodies. Such growths are called ant kohlrabi, which is the main food of the ant family. The weight of one such mushroom can reach 500 grams. One ant colony can have more than a hundred of these fungi.

Mushroom grows from an ant

“The fungus - cordyceps unilateralis (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) - infects the nervous system of the ant, turning the hardworking soldier into an asocial zombie: the infected insect leaves the colony, descends from the tree to the ground and attaches itself to some leaf, digging its mandibles (mandibles) into the vein of the plant. Having grabbed the leaf with its mandibles, the zombie ant dies. After some time, the fruiting body of the very fungus whose spores turned it into a zombie grows out of the insect’s head,” writes David Hughes in a new article on the death walks of sick ants.

Your own vegetable garden

Their process of destroying foliage is very interesting. Some individuals trim the leaf from the cutting, then other ants approach it, specializing in gnawing out small pieces and dragging them into the house. Separate rooms of the anthill are reserved for growing mushrooms. And the leaves serve as a nutrient medium. To make mushrooms grow better, these insects use special fertilizers - their excrement, which they place on each leaf. But ants don't just eat mushrooms. They make sure they don't grow too big and trim them regularly. Then drops form at the site of the cut, which serve as food for them. The ants lick these drops, and their saliva, which contains large amounts of antibiotics, destroys harmful fungi and bacteria that can damage their mycelium. To ensure that the entire colony has enough food, these insects can grow about 100 mushrooms. Moreover, one weighs about 500 grams.

Diet features

Their diet consists only of mushrooms; they are not able to digest other types of plant and animal food.

In order to have enough food for the entire colony, they have to grow the mushrooms themselves, which is a process consisting of the following stages:

There is a separate working caste that first finds a suitable tree with leaves and cuts them. These individuals have the longest legs, so they can easily climb to the very tops of trees. The leaves are then passed on to another caste of porters. These individuals are very hardy and strong, they carry prey to their home. At the next stage, when the leaves are brought into the anthill, they need to be processed. To do this, another group chews them to a pulp, this is how healthy fats are extracted, and the consistency allows mushrooms to germinate. After this, the pulp is mixed with the colony's excrement and other nutritious fertilizers, which are obtained by the goosebumps and spread on the farm

The placement of the nutrient mush is very important in this procedure; they lay it out in the form of long thin threads, which makes it easy to move. And a separate caste looks after the harvest; they make sure that their mycelium grows correctly and does not go beyond the farm. In addition, mushrooms must be processed so that harmful bacteria do not appear, and they do this with the help of saliva, which contains a natural antibiotic.

The workers chew the food and distribute it among all adult insects; the remains are fed to the larvae. When the entire harvest is harvested, the mycelium is carefully removed and cleaned for a new harvest. The anthill has a separate chamber where all the garbage is taken out.

Females are more important

The leaf-cutter ant, whose lifestyle is certainly interesting, also reproduces in an original way. To raise insects capable of reproduction, special individuals fatten the larvae, adding special substances to their food that stimulate sexual development. The females and males that grow from these larvae mate with each other. Moreover, the female needs a large amount of sperm, so she mates with several males. After mating, which lasts only one day, the males die.

Brownies or pharaohs

This is one of the varieties of ants that live in human housing. Therefore, quite often pharaoh ants are called house ants. Individuals of this species are the smallest (their body length does not exceed 4 mm).

Mature individuals are usually red or brown-yellow in color, have a dark abdomen and a transparent cuticle. Only males are capable of flight; it is these flying ants that can be observed during the mating season. Females have wings only during the mating period. After fertilization, females chew them off as unnecessary. Workers are born without wings at all.

Living in human housing, ants of this species do not hibernate: they reproduce throughout the year, without flying out to mate. The larvae hatching from the eggs become sexually mature after 35-38 days. As a result, the ant family can be replenished by more than one thousand individuals in a fairly short time.

Monsters among the ants

Stray ants can reach 3 cm in length, and their females - up to 5 cm. Their soldiers are armed

The most dangerous ant in the world is.

30 bullet ant bites per 1 kg of victim weight are fatal.

The intensity of pain after a bite is higher than with a wasp sting; the bitten area hurts for more than a day. By the way, in some Indian tribes there is a rite of passage for a young man to become a man. A sleeve with live ants is placed on the boy’s hands, which become swollen and paralyzed after being bitten. Sometimes the fingers turn black and the child goes into shock.

What does a red ant look like?

This is a relatively small insect; the body length of an adult ant does not exceed 5 mm. There are several color shades - from fiery red to dark burgundy. Newborns do not have a pronounced color. The body structure is identical to most representatives of this species. Upon closer examination, you can see three main parts of the body:

• head department
• rib cage
• abdomen
• segmented bridges allowing insect mobility

On the ant's head you can see large mandibles - with their help the insect bites the victim and carries loads and larvae. The eyes are located on the sides. Thanks to their complex faceted structure, the insect is perfectly oriented in the dark and quickly responds to movement. The most important sense organ is a pair of antennae, with the help of which the ant explores surrounding objects.

The body has six movable limbs, at the end of each of them there is a large hook-shaped claw. With their help, the ant easily moves along vertical surfaces and easily holds its body even while on the ceiling. The largest part of the body is the abdomen. The digestive and reproductive segments are located in it; working individuals have a large sting, used as a weapon of defense and attack.

Own house

The building of a new family begins with the departure of the female. She does not fly away with empty paws, or rather, jaws. In her special pocket, she takes away a piece of mycelium so that, having settled in a new place, she can begin to arrange new plantings. Having found a suitable place, the female digs a passage underground. There she makes a hole in which she plants the mycelium. She lays eggs nearby. Initially, she takes care of the children and the “garden” herself. Moreover, the female feeds on her eggs and partially born young. Over time, the ants grow up and begin to monitor the mushrooms themselves. Then the uterus retires. There should be one queen in one anthill. If she dies, then the workers begin to look after the eggs.

How do leaf cutters reproduce?

The reproduction process of leaf cutter ants is similar to their counterparts. With the arrival of warmth, the male and female fly out of the nest to mate. To accumulate the required amount of seed, a swarming female mates with several males. After which she chews off her wings and sets about building a new colony. The life of male ants ends here.

The fertilized female digs a small hole where she lays her eggs. There she also puts pieces of leaves infected with mycelium. This substance is found in a special pocket located on the lower part of the queen's head. It is this component that serves as the beginning of the life of a leaf cutter ant farm.

The eyeless and legless larvae that appear after 1.5 months are completely helpless, so they are exclusively fed by the female. They feed on fungal hyphae. The leafcutter queen herself does not eat at all during this period; she lives using her fat reserves. The queen feeds exclusively the first offspring, later the workers do this. The uterus only lays eggs.

Queens and infertile females, who later become the workforce, emerge from fertilized eggs. Ant eggs that remain unfertilized hatch into males.

They'll definitely grow up

Having seen the larva of a leaf-cutter ant, the description of which you have already become familiar with, you would never say that it will grow into a strong ant. She looks like a little white worm. She has no eyes, no limbs, and without special care she will die. Moreover, for proper growth and development, it is necessary to monitor not only the correct feeding of the larvae, but also the conditions in which they are located. Air temperature and humidity must be maintained at a certain level. The ants feed the larvae with their own eggs, gradually transferring them to mushrooms. Interestingly, unfertilized eggs grow into males. Of the fertilized ones, there are females that will eventually become workers or queens.

Lifestyle

Ants are one of the most amazing insects found in nature. To begin with, without having a sufficiently developed brain, they are able to perform clearly organized joint actions to protect their family and obtain food. The structure of the ant family is even more amazing. It is divided into specialized groups, each of which performs its own strictly defined work.

Ant colony structure

Red ants have the following colony structure:

• individuals reproducing offspring;
• worker ants;
• brood

The queen is a female that continuously lays eggs throughout her life. Red ants have several of them, which contributes to the rapid reproduction of these insects. The uterus, or as it is also called the queen, is very similar in appearance to working individuals, but unlike them, it is large in size.

The worker red ant is a female with an underdeveloped ovipositor. Their main function is to collect food, protect the family and care for the younger generation. Worker ants, like the queen, develop from fertilized eggs, but the development of their ovipositor is suspended.

Brood - eggs, larvae and pupae, are located deep in the bowels of the nest. They are absolutely helpless and depend entirely on the care of worker nanny ants.

What do they eat?

Red ants are omnivores. In the wild, they feed on plant sap, grass seeds, insects, tree fruits, and the corpses of dead animals. On occasion, they will attack a wounded animal, a helpless cub, or a chick. Even a person can become their victim if he cannot escape from them in time.

Settling in human dwellings, red ants eat cereals, bread, butter, sugar, meat, fruits, and vegetables. Any food that is not cleared from the table in time can serve as food for them. They will not disdain clothes made from natural fabrics, leather book bindings, or wallpaper paste. They will eat paper, cardboard and cellophane if they contain something tasty for them. Red ants, having settled in an apartment, can even feast on the insulating winding, often causing short circuits in electrical wires and fires.

Where live?

In nature, red ants usually settle closer to a source of food and water. They form especially large colonies in tropical forests with a hot climate and high humidity. In city conditions, they make their nests under the asphalt surface of sidewalks and highways, traffic lights, and street telephones.

Making their way into houses, insects settle wherever there is a space more or less suitable for them in size. They can be found especially often in the following places:

• inside household appliances;
• computers;
• air conditioners;
• under baseboards;
• between ceilings;
• in kitchen cabinets;
• under loose wallpaper.

Under the protection of human buildings, in warmth and satiety, they multiply with incredible speed, as the colony grows, capturing more and more new spaces, eventually spreading throughout the house.

How do they reproduce?

Red ants reproduce sexually. They have females and males that emerge from the nest shortly before breeding. They, unlike asexual individuals, have wings and can fly. Mating usually occurs in the air above the anthill, after which the males die, and the females look for a suitable place to create a colony.

After laying eggs, females chew off their wings and lose the ability to fly. All the time, right up to the appearance of worker ants, they do not feed and exist only due to previously accumulated reserves of nutrients. They feed the first larvae hatched from the eggs with a specially secreted secretion, and when the workers emerge from the cocoons, they are exclusively engaged in laying eggs.

The development of red ants follows the pattern of complete transformation of insects. It includes the following stages:

• egg
• larva
• doll
• imago.

The eggs are very small - up to 0.5 mm in length. They are white in color and covered with a white shell. The worm-like larvae that emerge from them are poorly adapted to independent life. They are fed and cared for by nurse ants, who rarely leave the nest and receive food from worker ants. During its development, the larva goes through 4 stages of molting, which end with pupation. Depending on the specialization, a female, male or worker ant emerges from the pupa.

That's how they live

Scientists have studied what an ants' home looks like. It even became known why they build it underground, and not on trees, closer to the leaves that they need so much. The fact is that deep in the soil there are almost no temperature changes that can be dangerous for growing mushrooms. Also, in such conditions, the mycelium is protected from high humidity, which has a detrimental effect on it. To understand how the house of leaf-cutter ants works, you need to imagine a giant egg in cross-section. The safest place is in the center. This is where the chamber in which the uterus lives is located. This cell is surrounded by special children's "rooms". It is in them that larvae are raised from eggs. Mushrooms are grown in the outer chambers. Interestingly, some leafcutter ants clean their homes and take trash outside. Others put it in special garbage “rooms”.

The meaning of forest ants

Ants secrete such a useful substance as formic alcohol. It is used in

modern medicine for the treatment of rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, tuberculosis, hepatitis, bronchial asthma, renal failure, diabetes. Helps with hair loss.

Forest ants have a very broad positive effect on the soil - they loosen it, enrich the soil with oxygen and nutrients, and increase the biological activity of the soil.

They increase the grass cover in the forest and enrich it.

They regulate the number of harmful insects by eating any species that has begun mass reproduction. They often switch completely to this type, suppressing further spread.

The negative impact of ants is their ability to breed and graze aphids, which harm plants.

However, in the forest this feature causes much less harm than in gardens and vegetable gardens.

Activities to your liking

Interestingly, different individuals of ants perform different functions. Among them are those who take care of the queen, the house, and the farm. Others guard the anthill and extract leaves. Moreover, these insects even differ in size. The smallest ones are worker ants. The largest is the uterus. It weighs 700 times more than a small individual. But not every colony has soldiers. Only the largest and most powerful ones have security. Interesting insects are leaf-cutter ants. "What are they needed for?" - someone will be interested.

Difficult pests

At first glance, it seems that these insects cause only harm. Indeed, if there are too many of them, perhaps they will be able to eat the entire forest. That is, over time they will turn our planet into a desert. However, this does not happen. Apparently, nature itself maintains a certain balance. After all, leaf-cutter ants have natural enemies that prevent them from spreading too much. People also fight these insects, preventing them from approaching cultivated crops. To do this, their nests are destroyed using chemicals, and metal, plastic or water barriers are installed around the trees. Under natural conditions, the underground activity of leaf-cutter ants even contributes to the enrichment of soil layers and the acceleration of metabolic processes in the ecosystem. In addition, leaf-cutter ants themselves have become food for humans. Fried insects have long been eaten in South America and other countries.

Nowadays, we don’t have any kind of pets! For some people, these are leaf-cutter ants. Of course, they do not live in a garden plot, but in special insectariums in which special conditions have been created. These insects are interesting to watch, but still they must live in their natural habitat. If you are not planning to travel to South America anytime soon, you can see leaf-cutter ants at the Moscow Zoo.

List of species

Danger to people

They do not pose any serious danger to humans. Their saliva does not contain poisons and does not cause harm. But if a person touches their personal space and poses a threat to the colony, then these goosebumps are able to defend themselves and bite a person. Thanks to their sharp and strong jaws, they easily bite through the skin. Their bite is quite unpleasant and painful, it is worth saying that the insect will not limit itself to one bite; there will be several, so a person will experience unpleasant sensations. Such attacks can cause allergic reactions.

Quite often, owners of garden plots fight leaf cutters, since large colonies in small areas can harm plants. Most often, metal or plastic fences are used, which block their path, thereby preventing them from setting up anthills, which are also effective water barriers. Another method relates to the destruction of an anthill.

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