“Leafcutter ants cultivated fungi millions of years before humans developed agriculture.”
Leafcutter ants harvest vegetation not to eat the leaves, but to cultivate fungus in underground gardens. Their tropical American colonies divide cutting, carrying, defense, gardening, and brood care among workers of different sizes.
By An Nguyen · Published · Updated
Measured against the 176 species profiled on this site. Each figure is converted to one unit system from the published range on the page, so the ranks are computed, not quoted.
| Measure | This species | Rank here | Exceeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body mass | 0.06 g | #175 of 176#10 of 11 Insecta | 1% |
| Body length | 2.4 cm | #173 of 176#8 of 11 Insecta | 2% |
| Top speed | 0.3 km/h | #75 of 75 | 0% |
| Lifespan in the wild | 3 yr | #158 of 169#3 of 11 Insecta | 6% |
Closest in body mass
Ranks use the upper end of each published adult range, so they compare typical large adults rather than records, and metrics with no published number are left out rather than estimated. The full table is downloadable from the species dataset, and any two species can be put side by side in the comparison tool.
Browse photographs of leafcutter ant across habitat, behavior, anatomy, and life stages.
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Core article
A closer look at habitat, diet, behavior, reproduction, and conservation.
The leafcutter ant (Atta cephalotes) of the tropical forests and savannas of the Americas is a farmer. Its workers slice up vegetation and haul it underground, but they don't eat the leaves — the colony uses the plant matter as compost to grow a fungus, and the fungus is what feeds them. A single colony can number in the millions and strip a tree bare in a night.
A mature colony is made of sterile female workers in wildly different sizes (polymorphism), from about 2 to 24 millimeters, each size matched to a job. The tiniest minims tend the fungus gardens, weeding out parasitic spores, feeding the larvae, and riding on carried leaf fragments to fend off parasitic phorid flies. Minors and mediae are the foragers and cutters, marching in columns and slicing foliage with saw-like mandibles powered by big head muscles — a worker can carry a fragment 50 times her own weight. Heavy-headed majors, or soldiers, guard the nest entrances and trails against army ants and armadillos, with jaws strong enough to cut human skin. Above them all is the queen, her abdomen swelling to lay thousands of eggs a day. The ants cultivate the fungus Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, feeding it processed leaves and keeping it clean; in return it grows nutrient-rich swellings (gongylidia) the colony eats — neither partner can complete its life cycle without the other. They belong to the ant family Formicidae.
Leafcutter ants are strictly New World insects, and Atta cephalotes is widespread across the neotropics, from Mexico through Central America and deep into South America — Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru. They occupy humid tropical rainforest, secondary forest, savanna, and agricultural plantations. A mature nest may span 30 feet across and reach 20 feet underground in a maze of thousands of chambers, with shafts arranged so that wind and temperature differences vent carbon dioxide out and draw oxygen into the fungus gardens.
Despite the name, leafcutter ants don't eat leaves — they are strict fungivores, and feeding a colony of up to five million runs through an assembly line. Scouts find a suitable tree and lay a pheromone trail; media workers cut leaf sections with vibrating jaws; workers carry the fragments down cleared trails to the nest; smaller workers chew them into a pulp mixed with their own fecal enzymes that break down plant toxins; and this paste is spread on the fungus garden. The fungus digests the plant matter and produces the nutrient-dense nodules that are then harvested and fed to larvae and queen.
A leafcutter colony is often called a superorganism, its reproduction, foraging, defense, and gardening divided among specialized individuals. Communication is chemical and mechanical: pheromones signal alarm, direct traffic, and mark food, while ants stridulate by rubbing abdominal structures together, sending vibrations through soil and plants to recruit help to fresh leaves or a damaged tunnel.
A new colony starts with a single mated queen carrying a scrap of the vital fungus. At the start of the rains, winged queens and males leave mature nests and mate in the air; the males soon die, and each fertilized queen lands and sheds her wings. Before leaving home she had tucked a pellet of the fungus into a pocket in her mouth (the infrabuccal pocket); now she burrows into the soil, seals herself in, spits out the pellet, fertilizes it with her waste, and lays eggs — not eating until the first minims hatch and take over the garden. Workers live 2 to 3 years, but a successful queen can live 10 to 15, producing millions of offspring from that one mating flight; when she dies, the colony collapses with her.
Atta cephalotes is Least Concern and remains common in suitable habitat. Colonies can become pests when they strip foliage from citrus groves and plantations, but in natural ecosystems their foraging reshapes vegetation while their vast excavations aerate the soil and move nutrients underground.
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Arthropoda
Class
Order
Hymenoptera
Family
Formicidae
Genus
Atta
Species
A. cephalotes
Leafcutter ants cultivated fungi millions of years before humans developed agriculture.
A single leafcutter ant can carry a piece of leaf that is 50 times heavier than its own body.
A mature underground colony can contain up to 5 million ants and span more than 30 feet.
Workers occur in different size groups, including small gardeners, leaf cutters, and large soldiers.
When a new queen leaves to start a new nest, she carries a tiny bit of the mother colony's fungus in a special pocket.
They do not eat the leaves they cut; they use them as compost to feed and grow their underground fungus gardens.
Select a question to reveal the answer.
No, they do not eat the leaves. Instead, they chew the leaves into a paste and use it to grow a special type of fungus, which is the only food the colony eats.
A leafcutter ant can carry a leaf fragment weighing up to about 50 times its own body weight.
They cut pieces of leaves and carry them underground to feed fungus gardens, not to eat the leaves directly.
Leafcutter ants eat a special fungus that grows on the plant pieces they collect.
They live in tropical and subtropical forests and grasslands of Central and South America.
Yes. They live in large colonies with queens, workers, soldiers, and carefully maintained fungus chambers.
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