According to a new research, ants did farming much before humans started doing it. The study reveals that a black ant found in Fiji, called Philidris nagasau, should be credited for inventing agriculture on earth around 3 million years back.
Philidris nagasau eats Squamellaria. The fungus-like species is typically found in various trees. These ants start living in the brown lumps on branches. They make their home there and start farming.
According to botanist Guillaume Chomicki from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, he first noticed dozens of plants filled with ants. He found ants moving back and forth between trees in one colony. Chomicki observed that these ants collect Squamellaria seeds and put those in tree cracks.
Then, they fertilize the seeds with their poop when plants grow. Eventually, plants start producing fruits and the ants start harvesting the seeds. The process continues in the same way over and over again.
Chomicki checked plants and found ants in all of those. These ants apparently do farming for six different species of the plant. They do not move to other plants, as it suggests that plants and ants are dependent on each other. The findings of the study have been published on Nature Plants.
According to entomologist-in-residence Brian Fisher from the California Academy of Sciences, this is a unique finding. Fisher further says the ants found in Fiji are not the only ones that do farming. He says ants disperse about 40% plants in the Northeastern US. He also says that, as fertilizers, ant poop is found abundantly in many plants.
Fisher also says that ants were found farming fungus as many as 8 million years back. Humans developed agriculture much later, around 12,000 years back. But, at the same time, it is reminded that these ants do farming on fungus, not on plants.
"We already have ants that disperse seeds, and have ants that feed plants, but we've never had a case where they farm a plant they can't live without," NPR quoted Fisher as saying.
