The Leaf-Cutting Ants

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ant is believed to cause a total yearly loss of $5 million in the United States (unison services. 1998).
There are about 9,500 named species of ants. These ants are divided into 16 sub families and 300 genera, all which belong to the family called Formicidae, the family of ants (Hoyt. 1996). The leaf cutting ant belongs to the genus called Atta. There are fifteen different species of Atta and all are limited to the new world (Holldobler & Wilson, 1994).
The leaf-cutter ant looks pretty much like a regular ant in North America except that it is a little bigger than most ants. Looking at the ant in the untrained eye a person usually perceives that it is a primitive organism. Looks can be deceiving. The leaf-cutter ant is a complex superorganism unique social, environmental, and food gathering behavior.
The anatomy of the leaf-cutter ant is pretty simple.

It has a one segment "waist" (pedicel) between thorax and abdomen. Sharp spines on waist and backward from head. Antennae ...

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picks up a burden of 300 kilograms or more and speeds back to the nest at 24 kilometers an hour – hence 4 minute miles (Holldobler & Wilson, 1994).

The queen is the largest of the ants and can reach length larger than ½ an inch and her life span can be 10 years or more (Smith. 1997). The queen has wings and when she decides to leave the nest she carries a small pellet of mycelium (the fungus) in a special pocket on her head. When a new nest is found, the mycelium is used to start to grow food again. The colony growth is slow at first but soon proceeds rapidly and reaches maturity in about 5 years.
The nests of the leaf cutting ant can get up to 200 square meters in length and 6 ...

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