Skip to main content
Back to Show
Deep Look

Where Are the Ants Carrying All Those Leaves?

Season 2 Episode 1

Ants don’t eat leaves, they use them to grow white tufts of nutritious fungus to feed their offspring. Their success as farmers has made leafcutter ants into fungus tycoons, complete with their own underground cities and huge half-inch soldiers to patrol them.

Sign up now for inspiring and thought-provoking media delivered straight to your inbox.
Support Provided By
Season
5 of the Worst Tiny Bloodsuckers That Have Ever Bitten Us
19:31
Mosquitoes, ticks, lice, kissing bugs and tsetse flies are all looking to grab a bite ... of you.
This Mite-y Beetle Buries the Dead to Start a Family
4:32
Burying beetles haul mouse carcasses into the dirt and prep them to start a family.
Watch Salamanders Skydive!
3:47
Wandering salamanders can skydive in the branches of the tallest trees in the world.
Tar Pits Are a Death Trap. Except for This Fly.
4:45
The petroleum fly and their larvae thrive in the natural asphalt at the La Brea Tar Pits.
Watch This Starfish Protect Her Babies From Danger
5:15
Six-rayed sea stars make great moms, caressing and protecting their babies for months!
Fly Metamorphosis is a Beautiful Nightmare
4:12
House flies deploy a specialized organ called the ptilinum to break out of their pupa!
Stingless Bees Guard Tasty Honey With Barricades, Bouncers and Bites
6:15
Stingless bees don’t have stingers. So, how do they keep honey thieves away?
Meet the Bug You Didn't Know You Were Eating
5:16
After cochineals die, their legacy lives on in the brilliant red hue produced by their hemolymph!
Watch Ferns Get Freaky
3:44
Those rows of orange cluster under a fern leaf are spores waiting to be catapulted away.
These Solar-Powered Carnivorous Flatworms Divide and Conquer
5:16
These tiny marine flatworms are smaller than a grain of rice but have amazing abilities!
That's Not Rain, That's Super-powered Pee!
3:57
Sharpshooters have super-propulsive urine using a catapult in their butt.
A Coral is Born
4:36
Corals create an underwater "snowstorm" by sending tiny white spheres up the water column.
Active loading indicator