The American Museum of Natural History is unveiling an enormous new exhibit of leafcutter ants. Making it happen was no picnic.

The extraordinary division of labor within a colony of leafcutter ants allows them to become top-notch agriculturists.

Have you ever imagined a bustling city beneath your feet, pulsing with life and humming with purpose—yet entirely hidden from view? Deep in the heart of tropical forests, an astonishing community ...

Watch the Video Click here to watch on YouTube For centuries we have believed that humans were unique in our ability to farm and cultivate our own food. However, it turns out that ants grow their own ...

The exhibit now displays the ant colony for visitors. Leafcutter ants are native to South and Central America, Mexico and the southern United States, with many species spanning their range.

Fungus-Farming Ants Each leafcutter colony is home to several sizes of ants that perform different functions.

Leaf-cutter ants at the American Museum of Natural History in April. The colony was harvested in Trinidad and nurtured in Oregon, and it arrived in New York City last December. Todd Heisler/The ...

Every individual worker in an ant colony is part of a collective—a female dominated society with one or more reproductive individuals (usually queens, occasionally egg-laying workers) at the helm.

The “Ants and Agriculture” exhibit in the Microbial Sciences Building closed Thursday with staff and students gathering to say their goodbyes to the ant colony. Forty people watched as the Currie Lab ...

Parker Gibbons stands atop a leafcutter ant mound in Belize. The 15-by-20-foot mound houses an ant colony with a queen that could be 20 years old and have laid 200 million eggs.

Ant Farming 101 A colony of leafcutter ants can defoliate an entire tree in a single day. ©Matyas Rehak/Shutterstock.com ...