The Courier has teamed up with Blair Drummond Safari Park to offer readers the chance to win a family pass for two adults and two children each week - and learn a bit more about their residents at the same time.
The safari park is home to many iconic animals and people travel from all over the country to come and see the lions, elephant, giraffes and rhinos. Today we would like to shine a light on some of our lesser known (and smallest) residents.
Within our indoor elephant viewing platform, you can find our colony of leafcutter ants. With their nest on one side of the room and their fresh resources on the other, our ants travel from one end of the exhibit to the other using ropes between the two. As they walk between the two, you can see them carrying bits of the leaves they have cut.
Amazingly, they can carry things almost 50 times their own body weight; that would be like a human carrying a car!
Leafcutter ants have specially designed jaws that help them to saw off pieces of plants. Their chainsaw-like mandibles vibrate 1000 times per second, causing the leaves to stiffen up and making them easier to cut.
You may think that the ants are carrying back these leaves to eat them, but this is not actually the case. Leafcutter ants don’t eat the leaves they collect, they cultivate them in a garden to grow a special type of fungus that they feed on.
Leafcutter ants are actually very hardworking farmers! Their colonies can hold a huge population of ants and will include spaces for their fungus gardens, nurseries, and rubbish chambers. Within the colony, each ant has a special role. There are workers, soldiers, rubbish gatherers and leaf protectors.
Of course, there is also the one and only egg-laying queen. It is extremely difficult for a female ant to become a queen, with only about 2.5 per cent of potential queens succeeding in doing so. Don’t forget to look out for our smallest residents next time you visit!
Blair Drummond Safari Park is open seven days a week from 10am until 5.30pm Monday to Friday with 7pm closes on selected Saturdays and Sundays throughout July and August. Tickets can be booked online at blairdrummond.com.
For a chance to win a family pass, which can be used any one day during the park’s opening season this year, just answer the following question:
How many times a second do the leafcutter ants’ mandibles vibrate?
Send the coupon with your answer, name, address and contact number to: Safari Park Competition, West Lothian Courier, One Central Quay, Glasgow, G8 9DA.
The deadline is Wednesday at 4pm. Only original vouchers will be accepted.
Don't miss the latest news from the West Lothian Courier. Sign up to our free newsletter here
