Atta laevigata ants have different sizes and shapes depending on their role in the colony. If you look at their body parts, some of their roles seem very suited to them. The ants in the colony with the biggest muscles for biting and the biggest mandibles (or chomping structures on their heads) are the soldiers, and their role is to protect the colony. The ants with the biggest abdomens, or back parts of their body where the guts and reproductive parts are located, are the ants who lay the eggs to make sure the colony has many new young ants to do lots of the work of maintaining the colony.
I want to talk specifically about the "big-bottomed" ants of the colony, or specifically the ants that are able to start and maintain their own colonies by laying lots of eggs. This ant has a head with two eyes and two antenna and big mandibles for digging, a hairy thorax (or middle part of their body) where six legs are attached and (for at least a part of their lives) where long wings are attached, and a shiny large abdomen that will hold hundreds of millions of eggs! These ants are the future queens of a colony of leaf cutter ants.
The Atta laevigata queens only come out above ground once in their lives! I was so excited to be in Barichara on the day when some of the ant princesses came out for that special day. Every year, in the rainiest season here in Santander, Colombia, when the moon is fairly large in the sky and it rains a lot for many days followed by a very sunny day, a special series of events happens that prepares the way for the leaf cutter princesses to come out.
