Monday, April 28, 2014

Leaf Cutter Ants Going into their Den

Yesterday's photo showed a photo of a hole in the trough in the grass.  This is a closer view of the hole.  It reveals that the hole was not made by a rodent, but by leaf cutter ants.  They were carrying a steady stream of leaves down the whole.

As I have mentioned before, leaf cutter ants choose only certain types of leaves, not to eat them, but to feed the leaves to a fungus underground so that the ants can eat the fungus.

There was not a lot of light at the entrance to the hole, as it was very late in the afternoon.  This photo is therefore not the best, but I decided to take matters into my own hands, as I will show you tomorrow.

This week we have photos of the architecture of Portugal posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

6 comments:

glenda said...

Here is a whole community beneath our feet. Very interesting.

Sharon said...

Such enterprising little creatures.

Judy said...

Ants are such busy little things. Always going somewhere. We don't have leaf cutter ants here. Just those nasty little red ants.

Linda said...

Fascinating.

Bob Crowe said...

I have a strong memory of a line of these critters marching across a beam of wood near Monteverde, so orderly, such labor. However, I did not know that they build underground nests.

Kate said...

Maxing the photo is a good way to see this colony of ants!

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