Tiny nurse ants tending to white ant larvae are dwarfed by the queen ant in the upper right. All the ants feed upon protein-rich food produced by a white-grey fungus that they cultivate underground. (Karolyn Darrow)

Thanks to the folks at Smithsonian for this one:

Were Ants the World’s First Farmers?

A new study shows that a group of ants have been conducting a subsistence type of farming since shortly after the dinosaurs died out

By Jackson Landers

Humans have been practicing agriculture for about 10,000 years. But the attine ants of South America (which include the well-known leafcutters) have us beat by a long way.

According to a new paper co-authored by entomologist Ted Schultz, curator of ants at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, attine ants, which farm on an industrial scale similar to humans, have been carefully cultivating gardens with a complex division of labor to grow an edible fungus. Schultz’s team found that the ants have been doing this far longer than previously believed—up to 65 million years—and that we have much to learn from them. Continue reading →