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Meet the coolest cats on the Amazon floor: Leafcutter Ants (also coincidentally my new obsession)
After humans, leafcutter ants have the most complex social structures on Earth. A mature ant colony functions in the form of a caste system with all ants serving one Queen. There are four castes with the smallest workers (minims) being at the bottom and the warriors (majors) occupying the top tear. Each of these ants are born from the same Queen yet somehow it is genetically predetermined what caste the ant will grow to be. They are extremely sophisticated invertebrates who communicate mainly through smell. While observing these ants, I witnessed the smaller ants make a bridge out of their bodies over a sidewalk crack for larger ants carrying bits of a leaf to easily cross.
In addition to their fascinating social structures, these natural composters are responsible for keeping the rainforest soil rich in nutrients which allows a diversity of plant life to grow in abundance. So essentially we have the Amazon rainforest because of these little guys. Nice.
