Ants Started Farming Millions of Years Before Humans Did

(via Popular Mechanics)  A new study led by the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Copenhagen found that a species of ants in South America known as attini were cultivating fungi 55 to 60 million years ago, just after the age of the dinosaurs. By analyzing the genes of today’s fungus-farming ants, the scientists pieced together the history of ant farmers and the fungi species they harvested.