Leafcutter ants - HD stock video

High-speed footage of leafcutter ants (Atta sp.) carrying cut pieces of leaf back to their nest. These ants bite out small pieces of leaves from the plants near their nest. The nest is a subterranean network containing multiple linked chambers. The ants carry the pieces to dedicated chambers in their nest, where they are chewed up and used as a substrate on which the ants cultivate a specific fungus. The fungus constitutes the entirety of their diet. The fungal spores pass in the ants' faeces, which they use to inoculate the leaf mulch. Atta sp. ant colonies can be enormous, with more than a million ants inhabiting a nest up to seven metres deep and 70 metres wide, with well over 1000 chambers. Filmed in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest.