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

19:31
Mosquitoes, ticks, lice, kissing bugs and tsetse flies are all looking to grab a bite ... of you.

4:32
Burying beetles haul mouse carcasses into the dirt and prep them to start a family.

3:47
Wandering salamanders can skydive in the branches of the tallest trees in the world.

4:45
The petroleum fly and their larvae thrive in the natural asphalt at the La Brea Tar Pits.

5:15
Six-rayed sea stars make great moms, caressing and protecting their babies for months!

4:12
House flies deploy a specialized organ called the ptilinum to break out of their pupa!

6:15
Stingless bees don’t have stingers. So, how do they keep honey thieves away?

5:16
After cochineals die, their legacy lives on in the brilliant red hue produced by their hemolymph!

3:44
Those rows of orange cluster under a fern leaf are spores waiting to be catapulted away.

5:16
These tiny marine flatworms are smaller than a grain of rice but have amazing abilities!

3:57
Sharpshooters have super-propulsive urine using a catapult in their butt.

4:36
Corals create an underwater "snowstorm" by sending tiny white spheres up the water column.