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Atta cephalotes: Flag-bearer
Photo by Richard Seaman
Website: Richard Seaman's website
Nice close-up pic of a forager brandishing a leaf fragment as it heads back home. I just thought of something while looking at this image. When I used to do molecular biology work, one of the traditional methods of creating transgenic plants was to cut a leaf into small fragments, then dip it into a culture of Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which will then transport the gene you want to insert via the open wounds.
In the case of leaf-cutting ants though, this leaf fragment is cut into much finer fragments, into a pulp, then fed to their fungus gardens.
Web Site Author: A. Sunjian
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