A well-known fable tells that, after spending a whole summer singing and idling, a cicada found itself without food and decided to ask its neighbor the ant for something to put in its mouth. She offered him grains of rice accompanied by a moral: better safe than sorry. Do ants deserve their reputation for being far-sighted and eager? Undoubtedly. Leaf-cutter ants ( Atta cephalotes ) , for example, are considered the first farmers on the planet , since in a single colony live from five to ten million workers dedicated to cutting, carrying and integrating leaves in the mushroom garden from which they feed. While they gather the leaf material, the queen ant lays eggs, the soldiers protect the nest and the "garbage workers" collect the useless material and place it in landfills. Another curious fact is that it has been proven that, practically in all species of ants, the oldest ones take on higher risk jobs . According to Dawid Moron and his colleagues at the Jagiellonian University (Poland), this is because it is better for the colony to sacrifice a life that is nearing its end than a young individual.
As for the cicadas, they cannot be accused of being lazy . What is certain is that males spend the summer "singing" – a sound they produce with membranes called timpani – and perched on a tree, on whose sap they feed.
