CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

This study reports on the observation of an unusualbehavior in leaf-cutting ants: foraging on wild mushrooms.Acolonyof Acromyrmex lundi in Buenos Aires (Argentina)was observed intensively harvesting basidiomes (mushroom fructiﬁcations) of wild Agrocybe fungus developing on a treebark. Another colony maintained for a month in laboratoryconditions also accepted Agrocybe mushroom and incorpo-rated the cut bits into the fungus garden in the sameway as theydo with leaves. We recorded these events conﬁdent that theyopen a new perspective on the study of the feeding habits ofleaf-cutting ants as well as on the relationship between theirfungus garden and other organisms.