Out of all the ants in Costa Rica (and omg are there a lot of ants here), leafcutters are probably my favorites. They make these crazy highways through the forest and spend every night marching along them - looking for suitable leaves to bring back to their giant ant hills. They use the leaves to cultivate a fungus inside the hill - which is their main source of food. I love how they are such busy little farmers. work work work!
We currently have a colony of leafcutters that marches into our bathroom every night looking for water. After dark, there are literally thousands of ants marching along the wall - and then by morning they have all disappeared. Usually when they march, they stay in a nice orderly line that we just hop over to get inside the bathroom. But sometimes while we are cooking dinner, one of us will forget and put our foot in their trail. Then the ants get all confused and go everywhere. its annoying cause then they wander around and bite any feet that are standing nearby. ouch!
One time we dropped a cooked fusili noodle in their path. The ants cut it up into pieces and carried it off. it was funny to watch little pieces of noodle marching off into the forest. ^__^ Tonight, I will try to get a good video of the bathroom leafcutters for you to see. If I get one, I will add it to this post.
There are quite a few different types of leafcutters. The little teeny ones are in charge of growing the fungus gardens and tending to duties inside the ant hill. The middle sized ones are the workers who march along the highways and carry leaves around. Then there are the big giant huge ones - the soldiers. They patrol around and defend the colony from danger. They also do the heavy lifting and help to clear big debris from the ant highway. I have no desire to get bit by one of them...their jaws are HUGE!
the other day while in the forest, I came across a poor beetle that had wandered onto a leafcutter trail. The workers and soldiers had swarmed it and were cutting it apart while it was still alive. Of course, I took a video. (this site compresses the crap out of my videos and makes them lose a lot of their quality. boo). You can see how the ants have already removed the beetle's legs and its little leg stumps are wiggling around. gory!
*chomp chomp chomp*
<3 Day
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