51 Leaf-Cutters

A clean dirt path several inches wide is a sign that you are near a leaf-cutter ant colony. In one direction the path branches into trails that end at a tree trunk or peter out in the grass. In the other direction it leads to the colony’s nest—a wide area marked by holes and large rubbish heaps.

The holes are entrances to the underground nest. The rubbish heaps are piles of old, dry plant matter that was cleared out of the nest when it was no longer useful. Leaf-cutters are farmers, and they use leaves and grass to grow their food—fungi. Fungi are types that grow on other plants or on decaying matter. Toadstools and molds are plants of fungi. At night the ants go out to forage for more material to grow food. Each ant carries a piece of leaf at least twice as large as its own body.

Leaf-cutters come in all sizes, and, oddly enough, it is the largest ones who do the least work. They are soldiers, whose main job is to protect the nest. They have enormous jaws. Because of this, the native Indians of South America, where these ants are found, put them to an odd use. Instead of using stitches to close a wound, the Indians hold large leaf-cutter ants up to the edges of a cut and let them bite it together. Then they pinch off the bodies, leaving the jaws behind to hold the wound firmly closed.

51 切叶蚁

一条几英寸宽的干净泥土小径，是你靠近切叶蚁群落的标志。小径的一个方向会分叉成多条小道，最终通向树干或是消失在草丛里。另一个方向则通往蚁巢——那是一片宽阔区域，以洞穴和巨大的垃圾堆为标志。

这些洞穴是地下蚁巢的入口。垃圾堆是一堆堆老旧、干枯的植物残骸，这些残骸在失去用处后被清理出了蚁巢。切叶蚁是“农夫”，它们利用树叶和草来种植自己的食物——真菌。真菌是一类生长在其他植物或腐烂物质上的生物。毒蕈和霉菌都属于真菌类。到了晚上，蚂蚁们会外出觅食，寻找更多用来培育食物的材料。每只蚂蚁都会搬运一块至少是自身两倍大的叶片。

切叶蚁的体型大小不一，而奇怪的是，体型最大的蚂蚁干活最少。它们是兵蚁，主要职责是保卫蚁巢。它们长着巨大的颚。正因为如此，在切叶蚁的栖息地南美洲，当地的印第安人给它们派上了一个奇特的用场：不用缝线来缝合伤口，而是把大型切叶蚁放到伤口边缘，让它们咬住伤口两侧。然后他们掐掉蚂蚁的身体，留下蚁颚来牢牢闭合伤口。