The Year the Leaf-Cutter Ants Took Manhattan

It was a cold, gray afternoon in December, and at the American Museum of Natural History, a half million leaf-cutter ants were hunkered down in their homes.

The ants typically spend their days harvesting slivers of leaves, which they use to grow expansive fungal gardens that serve as both food and shelter. On many days, visitors to the museum’s insectarium can watch an endless river of ants transporting leaf fragments from the foraging area to the fungus-filled glass orbs where they live.

But on Tuesday, the flow of leaf-cutter ants had slowed to a trickle, with just a few intrepid insects visibly living up to their name.