The ants live in hormigueros, or ant nests. These nests are gigantic. For instance, I’ve seen some in my town that are up to 4 feet in diameter! These nests can be found all over the country.
What are all these ants doing with these thousands of pieces of leaves? I used to think they eat them or, at the very least, feed them to their queen. After my first encounter with these ants on the soccer field, I got curious and started to do some digging. It turns out, the shreds of leaves are used to feed a fungus that exists in the ant nest. The ants and the fungus have a symbiotic relationship, where the ants cultivate the fungi by feeding it leaves. In return, the fungi serves as the primary food source for the ant colony. Neither can survive without the other!
The biggest threat to the zompopos are us! (Humans!) The ants and their fungi friends are incredibly important to the ecosystem here. By cutting leaves and bringing them back to their nests, the ants and fungi help decompose organic matter more quickly, converting it into a form that plants can more readily use. This decomposition process improves soil fertility and encourages plant growth.
For farmers, however, the zompopos are a complete disaster! Imagine you have a sprawling farm where you grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables. The zompopos are notorious for tearing these farms apart, leaving very little behind. To combat this, farmers will often use different chemicals to get rid of the nearby ant colonies.
