- Near the not-so-fluffy carpet of the forest floor,
one of the most remarkable farmers
in nature is busy at work.
The leaf cutter ant carefully dissects living leaves
weighing up to twenty times its body weight.
He will join his fellow ants in the
long march back to his hidey-hole.
Good job, Terrance, that is a good leaf.
Milo, Angie, well done.
Good, Katie.
David, come back, David, that's poop.
This caravan of leaf cutter ants is truly a spectacle.
From the tree's perspective, though,
imagine being you standing still
while ants walk by carrying little tips of human fingers
and perhaps a snippet of nipple
or some foreskin or a piece of upper lip.
From that perspective, it's expletive horrifying.
David, I'm serious, that is actually poop.
Of course, the question remains,
what the farmer's mother do they need all those leaves for?
Are they assembling a perfect replica
of the forest underground?
Perhaps the Earth is a giant pinata being stuffed.
Or perhaps the ants are just playing
a large game of Leafy Leafy, Who's an expletive.
It turns out that the leaves are transported
back to their little hidey-holes,
down into the ground to fungus chambers,
which is a good name for a band, by the way.
There, the leaves are processed to become
food for fungi of the family Lepiotaceae.
They have to be picky, though.
Not all fungi can be harvested.
Some fungus, like Cordyceps, zombifies its' host,
causing the ant to climb to a high place
and grab tight while the fungus
sprouts a frickin' spore from its' head,
which is crazy and a terrible,
if slightly cool-looking way to die.
Inside the leaf cutters nest, though,
the processing to turn leaves to fungus food is intensive.
Worker ants of various sizes cut
and puncture and pulverize the leafs,
even discharging fecal liquids to help break them down
into suitable pieces for their fungus farms.
Finally, the resulting fragments are gently
locked into a network of fungal filaments.
These fungus gardens then produce nutritious and swollen
hyphael tips that grow in bundles called staphylae,
which in turn feed the ants and their young.
This incredibly complex relationship is the result
of nearly 50 million years of co-evolution.
These fungi gave up the ability to create spores
and are utterly reliant on the ants to survive.
By comparison, 50 million years ago,
the major social breakthrough for our ancestors
was learning how to throw poop at each other
and then laughing about it.
It's still funny.
The leaf cutters are not alone in their pursuit of farming.
Other species of ants have developed a
mutualistic relationship with aphids,
sometimes referred to as ant cows;
a name which neither cows or aphids are fond of,
but the ants like the name because it's kind of true.
The ants protect the aphids from predators and parasites
and in some cases they will look after the aphids' eggs,
feeding the young aphids and even carry them
to the best grazing area on the plant.
If you fall asleep on the job like this one,
the aphid's get feisty.
Tappy, tappy, back to sleep.
The aphids feed on the sap of the host plant
and excrete a lovely sugary nectar referred to as honeydew.
Aphids that aren't ant cows will
drop that honeydew away into the ground,
which is generally a good rule of thumb
for things that come out of your expletive;
however, aphids that are tended to by ants
will concrete smaller droplets of honeydew
and make them available for the ants to eat.
The ants often milk the aphids by stroking their rears
to stimulate the flow of sugar-rich secretions.
Put it together, man.
The ants then suck up that honeydew into their two stomachs;
one for themselves and another one to feed their friends
through a process called trophallaxis,
or reciprocal feeding.
In summary, the ants eat aphid poop
and puke it into their friends' mouths.
Listen, though, don't judge.
I would gladly secrete a tiny little hamburger
out of my bellybutton for you to eat.
I could wear a half-shirt and a little
fanny pack filled with napkins.
That would be sharing like an ant, dude.
The variations of mutualism that ants
participate in are seemingly endless.
A recent discovery, for example,
involves a parasitic plant that lives
inside of a tree and then creates
these little knobby things on the trees' bark.
Caterpillars eat these knobs,
and ants protect the caterpillars,
and once in a while the ants play
patty-cake on the caterpillar's tummy,
and there's a secretion, people, and the ants eat it.
There's just a lot of secretion.
I feel a bit insecure about the value of my own secretions.
Certainly nothing to write home about.
Oh, but that would be a very funny letter to write.
Perhaps life is really just about
finding a taker for what you are giving.
David,
look around you,
no one is carrying anything that even resembles poop.
Except for you.