Leafcutter ants

In the wild, Leafcutter Ants perform many important ecological roles including soil aeration and nutrient cycling, however they are are capable of rapidly destroying crops and defoliating plants.

Our fascinating ‘open-air’ Leafcutter Ant display is located in the Spirit of the Jaguar rainforest exhibit.Here you can watch our ants busily cutting leaves and flowers and carrying loads (up to five times their own weight) in a multi-coloured procession back to their nest.

We provide our ants a variety of mixed leaves and flowers to cut, including bramble, privit, oak and hibiscus. Back at the nest they don’t eat the foliage, but instead clip it into smaller pieces, which they use to cultivate a special fungus. The ants tend to their ‘fungal garden’ very carefully and, in return, the fungus provides them with a constant source of food.

Our colony has one giant queen and thousands of worker ants of different sizes, who all have specific jobs. Generally, the smallest workers remain in the nest and maintain the fungus garden; medium workers gather plant material and the largest workers stand guard over the colony.

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