The Wee Wee ants (or leaf cutter ants) are one of the most annoying things to any person wishing to grow their own plants and trees in Belize.  These pesky ants come out in formidable numbers harvesting vegetation (leaves, flowers and cut grass) as a nutritional substrate for their fungus.  They come out in such huge numbers, they are even capable of defoliating a tree in one night.  We know this because it happens on our farm!  One day, our tree is looking magnificent…the next day, it is totally destroyed!!

These ants usually form mounds above ground which lead down to their underground cities.  I call them “cities” because these nests can grow to 100 ft (30m) across with smaller radiating mounds growing to about 260ft (80m) and can house eight million ants.  Amazing!!

These wee wee  ants cultivate a fungus by feeding it with fresh cut plant material (ie. all our lovely plants and trees).  Furthermore, these ants carry a bacterium which protects the fungi from pests and molds.  This is a really nice symbiotic relationship…sometimes you wish that us humans could form a better mutualistic relatiionship with the planet in the same way as these ants!  The fungus is used to feed the ant larvae.

I asked Gnome,

“Why can’t humans behave properly like the ants and live in balance with the Earth?”

Gnome was in no mood for “love and light” and said:

“…because most of them are idiots!!”

Even though these ants are a real pest on our farm, I can’t help but admire them for their diligent activities.

The other day, we actually found a leaf-cutter colony above ground because it was hidden in a particularly overgrown area.

This is the fungus.  We tasted a bit of it and it was quite sweet and mushroom-like.  We are thinking of cultivating it to eat and like all this stuff, it probably has medicinal properties.  The duckies certainly liked the mushroom as you can see them chomping it down:

Another Gnome project to add to the never-ending list!!