Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

So I set up my camera to take a shot every 30 seconds and photographed this....


This is how the nest looked, immediately following a rain storm.


With the surface scraped.


Can start to see the fungal chamber


and the fungus garden


clearing debris as I go


Making the hole larger in order to get to the garden.




Removing the fungus garden with the queen on board


Into a waiting container


Then tidy up the site.

Great post!
The fungus looks like its a blue/ green colour in parts??
Is the ground soil clay based?

Yes very clay like. But mainly wet. When it rains like it did prior to this everything gets very very wet. The soil is heavy.

I can't see any workers, I guess they hide inside the fungus?

The workers were inside the fungus but they also tend to be on the sides of the chamber. If you stuff a tissue into the cavity they all attack it and you can place that beside the fungus so all of the workers are caught.