Parasitic Fungus Ants

Parasitic fungus ants are small, at only around 2 mm in size, and have a peculiar characteristic: their bodies are composed of a mass of fungus. It is a truly unique example of epizoochory (the movement of vegetative organisms away from the primary habitat), with millions of fungal spores attached to these ants as a source of food. Parasitic fungus ants are a very rare species of ant that carry around a fungus garden (not the delicious kind) as well as a parasitic larvae (not the adorable kind), which they inject into the eggs of other insects. These “parasite-infested” eggs grow up to be adult parasitic fungus ants. This is how they parasitize other insects to complete their life cycle. These ants have an unusual and one of a kind biology that is completely separate from other species of ant.

Parasitic Fungus Ants

Parasitic fungus ants, commonly known as Dactylopius coccus, are a type of ant that lives in Central and South America. They are unusual because they feed on the sap from cactus plants, but unlike most ants, they do not collect food themselves. Instead, they rely on other insects to bring them the nectar and other food they need to survive.

The worker ants will sometimes hitch rides with other insects and land on the cactus plant. Once there, they stick their mouths onto the plant’s stem and wait for nectar-feeding insects like butterflies or bees to arrive. When one does, the worker ant licks its antennae clean of any pollen or nectar before jumping off and landing on another insect to repeat the process all over again.

When parasitic fungus ants find themselves without any other insects around, they’ll instead feed off of dead insects or feces left behind by larger animals like cows or horses—it doesn’t matter where it comes from so long as it contains some form of sugar or carbohydrate that can be converted into energy for survival purposes!

Parasitic fungus ants are unique in the way that they have evolved to be able to survive without a brain. They have no need for a brain because they live in the trees and do not need to think about how to get food or where their next home is going to be.

They use their antennae as their sense of smell, and can tell what kind of tree they are on just by smelling it. They also have sharp teeth that help them hold onto the tree branches so they don’t fall off when it rains.

The parasitic fungus ants are a species of ant that have evolved to live in symbiosis with a fungus. The ants are mostly blind and cannot feed themselves, but they are able to reproduce and survive on their own. The fungus species that the ants grow on them is also unable to grow on its own, and so the fungus allows the ants to feed off it in return for allowing it to grow on their bodies.

List of Parasitic Fungus Ants