Panama – leafcutter ants

Panama – Leafcutter Ants

It’s always fun when you, as a tourist, find something so mundane to people from the country you are visiting utterly fascinating.  I have wondered if there is anywhere in the world there aren’t pigeons when I see people interacting with the giant flying poop creators in Trafalgar Square and such.  How can these people find pigeons exciting?

In Panama, I was enamored with the leaf-cutting ants, which, to the locals, are super boring and everywhere (although less poop laden than their Pidgeon counterparts).  But that’s what’s fun about travel, seeing what’s new to you.  And leaf-cutter ants were new to me and I admired their industry and their farming skills.

I carefully avoided trampling their well-worn paths as I walked through the park after the guide, who clearly had no such compunction. Just as I ignore the pigeons that scatter as I walk down city streets.

It is interesting to note that the ants wear actual paths in the ground going to and from the tree or bush. Repeatedly going back and forth, carefully removing crescents of a leaf one at a time.  

They collect the leaf bits in their tunnels. There they chew them up, poop on them and let the fungus grow on them. That is what they eat. Yes, really.  I also saw them taking flower petals.  They make nice little lines that go back and forth from the nest to the leaf source. Unladen ants this way, and ants bearing leaf bits going that way.

If you want to learn more about these really cool critters, this is a good book. By great authors, it has a ton of info and good pictures explaining the lives of the fun-to-watch leafcutter ants.

Happy travels!