Where are leaf cutter ants found?
Children’s Zoo. Various species of leaf-cutter ants (aka atta ants) are found in northern South America, Central America, and Northern Texas.
How long does a queen leafcutter ant live?
6-10 weeks
The leafcutter ants can live up to 6-10 weeks.
How big is the leafcutter ant queen?
2 inches
The leaf cutter ant queen can have a size of 5 cm (2 inches), and live more than 20 years. Cultivation of fungus for food by fungus-farming capable ants was originated about 50 million years ago.
Are leaf cutter ants beneficial?
Leafcutter ants can carry twenty times their body weight and cut and process fresh vegetation (leaves, flowers, and grasses) to serve as the nutritional substrate for their fungal cultivates.
Are leafcutter ants beneficial?
Leafcutter ants use leaves as their fertilizer to grow their crop: fungus. They cultivate their fungal gardens by providing them with freshly cut leaves, protecting them from pests and molds, and clearing them of decayed material and garbage.
What do Atta Cephalotes eat?
A leafcutter ant of the species Atta cephalotes. Leafcutter ants harvest leaves to use as a substrate on which to grow fungus, which they consume as food.
What kind of ant is Atta cephalotes?
Atta cephalotes is a species of leafcutter ant in the tribe Attini (the fungus-growing ants). A single colony of ants can contain up to 5 million members, and each colony has one queen that can live more than 15 years.
Do Atta cephalotes respond to temperature differences between forest and pasture?
Foraging plasticity of Atta cephalotes (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in response to temperature differences between forest and pasture. Revista De Biologia Tropical. 67:963-974. Bustamante, S., Amarillo-Suárez, A. 2019. Foraging plasticity of Atta cephalotes (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in response to temperature differences between forest and pasture.
How do you identify Atta cephalotes?
Atta cephalotes can be distinguished by the wooly hairs on the heads of major workers and the shinier integument caused by the lack of hexagonal microsculpture, and the lack of small teeth or dents on the head anterior to the posterolateral spines.
Can Atta cephalotes eggs produce males?
Most Atta workers have rudimentary, non-functional ovaries in a queenright colony but a few, typically tending the queen, can produce trophic eggs (Dijkstra et al., 2005). These eggs are feed to the queen. It was not known if any worker eggs can produce males. No Atta cephalotes eggs developed into males.