COSTA RICA ANIMALS

Colony Life: One of Nature's Most Successful Organizations

epa10418153 Picture of ants known as "nurses" because they have a white bacterium that works as an antibiotic and that is in charge of curing any anomaly of the fungus on which the anthill feeds, in San Jose, Costa Rica, 17 January 2023 (issued 20 January 2023). Colonies of ants from the Atta Cephalotes family, known as leafcutters, live from Argentina to the southern United States. Their anthills can reach the size of a bus. The communities reach up to five million individuals, with a queen ant that lays about 2,000 eggs per hour. Scientists have appreciated the social structure of anthills by describing them as a super organism. Studies are constantly being carried out for the creation of an antibiotic that is produced by a bacteria associated with ants and that they use to cure the fungi on which they feed. EPA/Jeffrey Arguedas

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