She's a cutting machine! Like a circle cutter with legs come to life!
Her body is designed to cut and haul maximum LEAF.
What a triumph!
Oh you might not like it. You might get mad. But THIS is what peak performance looks like:
The book “Gardening Ants: The Attines” (Weber) is old but it has so many banger illustrations. Here is one showing the size difference in Atta cephalotes minors and majors. This difference is entirely caused by how the ants are fed and cared for. Ants have so much variability in gene expression and they use it to shape their population to fit the work that needs to be done. (I love the naturalistic placement of the minor on the major’s head, they do hang out like this.)
When atta are cutting a leaf they make stridulations (vibrations too hight-pitched for human hearing) by moving their exoskeleton. This noise isn't just a result of the cutting, it's an extra noise that carries through the plant, letting other ants know the quality of the leaf. The higher quality the leaf the more intense the sounds she will make calling more ants to the place where the leaves are at the perfect level of development for fungus farming.
Wonder if plants are alarmed by this?
