HOW DO ANTS PRACTICE AGRARIAN LIFESTYLE FARMING?
Leafcutters grow their mushrooms and use it to feed their young. You can compare them to agrarian farmers because of the way they look after the mushrooms: they weed, prune, fertilize, transplant and employ antibiotics to control infectious mold that attacks their crops. The size of the “garden” is proportional to the size of the colony.
The antibiotic is produced by bacteria that thrive on the ant’s outer skin. According to Ted Schultz, an insect specialist at National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C., the antibiotic has been effective against the molds for thousands of years. Infectious molds have not been able to develop immunity against it.
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