时差N小时:最早的农民 南非切叶蚁

Who were the first farmers on Earth? You mightthink it was the Babylonians or another group in theMiddle East. But humans are newcomers when itcomes to the fine art of raising food. Leafcutter antsof arid and tropical regions of South, Central andNorth America have been farming for fifty millionyears, long before modern humans existed.

谁是地球上的第一代农民?你可能会想到古巴比伦人或是中东的另一族群。但是谈到种植作物的艺术，人类还只是菜鸟而已。切叶蚁在美洲南部，中部和北部干旱的热带地区发展农业已有五千万年的历史，比人类的进化的历史还长。

Leafcutter ants have large jaws to cut through plant and tree leaves, but they do not eat leaves.Instead, they carry leaf pieces back to their five million or so nest mates. Here is where thefarming begins. Foraging ants hand their leaves over to smaller ants who rush them off to oneof many football sized chambers. The leaves are then chewed into smaller and smallerfragments until they can be added to a fungus culture garden.

切叶蚁用大下巴切碎植物和树叶，但它们并不吃树叶。相反，它们把碎树叶拖回容纳着500万同胞的巢穴。这就是农业的起源。外出觅食的蚂蚁将树叶交接给更小的蚂蚁，它们则将树叶碾到足球般大小的隔间里。然后将树叶咀嚼成更细的碎片，直到可以将其添洒到真菌花园里。

Fungi feed off the leaves and grow bodies called gongylidia which are then distributed aroundthe colony, especially to growing larvae. Fungus may not sound too appetizing, but the whitefluffy growths are much more nutritious than leaves. We use a similar process with cows. Theyare fed grasses which we can't digest to create milk and meat. The leafcutters not only growcrops, they also protect them. While we use man-made pesticides, leafcutters use antibioticsmade by their skin bacteria to ward off invasive mold. They also physically remove foreignfungi growing in their gardens. Their system of agriculture is one to be admired. It certainly haspassed the test of time.

真菌以树叶为食，长出躯干来(叫做结节丝)，随后四处蔓延，分散在茁壮成长的幼虫的“殖民地”里。也许菌类听起来并不让人垂涎三尺，但是那白绒绒的幼虫比树叶营养价值高得多。我们养牛的过程与此类似。我们喂牛吃草，草不能产奶但牛可以。切叶蚁不仅种植作物，还悉心料理它们。我们用人造杀虫剂来保护农作物，而切叶蚁则用自身皮肤上的细菌分泌的抗生素来阻止霉菌入侵。它们也会除掉长在花园里的异类真菌。它们的农业系统令人惊叹，当然也经得起时间的考验。