Texas leafcutter ant
The Texas leafcutter ant is a rusty brown ant that is a real farmer. It cuts pieces of leaves and carries them home, but it does not eat them. Instead it uses the leaves to grow a special fungus garden underground, and the fungus is its food.
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Fun facts
One colony can have up to 2 million workers, and several colonies together can grow to more than 10 million ants.
Its nest can go 6 metres deep and have 1,000 entrance holes.
An army of these ants can strip all the leaves off an orange tree in less than a day.
Workers come in many sizes, from tiny ones of 3 millimetres to big ones of 18 millimetres.
Unlike many ants, a colony often has more than one queen.
Most asked questions about Texas leafcutter ant
?What do leafcutter ants do with the leaves?
They do not eat them. They use the leaves to grow a fungus, and they eat the fungus.
?How big is a leafcutter ant nest?
Huge. It can be 6 metres deep with 1,000 entrance holes and up to 2 million ants.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Atta texana
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Town ant, Parasol ant, Fungus ant, Cut ant
Where the facts come from
- Texas leafcutter ant (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by en:User:Wild Bill. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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