A leaf cutter ant carrying a leaf shaped as a heart. Picture taken at Twycross Zoo, Warwickshire.

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A leaf cutter ant carrying a leaf shaped as a heart. Picture taken at Twycross Zoo, Warwickshire. Leaf-cutter ants have powerful jaws which vibrate a thousand times a second to slice off pieces of leaf. Size for size, their bodies are amazingly powerful, able to carry pieces of leaf that weigh at least 20 times their own body weight - that's the same as a human carrying a one ton load. Like bees, their colonies contain different sorts of workers. Soldier leaf-cutters have huge jaws, strong enough to cut through leather and gardener leaf-cutters work beneath ground and process the pieces of the leaf that the harvesters bring back. The nest also contains a single queen and she lays all the eggs needed to keep the colony supplied with new workers.

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Size: 6000px × 3999px
Location: Twycross Zoo, Warwickshire, England, UK
Photo credit: © David Warren / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: ant, carrying, dedication, emotion, hairs, heart, jaws, leaf, leafcutter, love, st, tiny, valentines, weight