› added 11 months ago

38

TIL of ant-fungus mutualism. Leafcutter ants cut leaves and transport them back to their nests, where the leaves are used to cultivate fungus which is used as a food crop. In some advanced genera the queen ant may take a pellet of the fungus with her when she leaves to start a new colony.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

J1dOV TIL that on Monday, August 24, 2015 world stock markets were down substantially, wiping out all gains made in 2015. With this plunge, an estimated $10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion) had been wiped off the books on global markets since June 3.
5Y4dR TIL US cotton exports were so cheap and competitive that they bankrupted the Egyptian economy back in the 1800s
GDMQ TIL - Monty Python’s “Dead parrot sketch” has its roots in the oldest book of humor known: Philogelos, written in the 4th century…
OX7L TIL ants enslaved by other ant species (TIL ants get enslaved) rebel against their masters by neglecting the work they’re assigned to do, and even killing the master species’ young. The slaves may not be able to save themselves, but by rebelling they can protect nearby relatives from the same fate.
VMdmD TIL that, while the Great White Shark was long thought of as the ocean’s apex predator, the Killer Whale has since been found to be a predator of the shark