Interesting Insects: Ants build nest ventilating turrets- Share your bug info here.

I find insects fascinating. Many people find them pests and annoyances, without stopping to think how this planet would be without them.

Grass-cutting ants build gigantic nests - underground cities where up to seven million insects live and tend a fungal garden that feeds their young.

Besides the excavation of underground nest chambers, Atta vollenweideri grass-cutting ants build ventilation turrets on the topmost openings of their huge nests. Turret construction was studied in a laboratory colony, addressing the question whether turrets are simply heaps of disposed soil, or result from the import and a particular spatial arrangement of materials.

Source-
Journal of Insect Behavior- pdf
I apologize if this has been covered specifically. I did not find this information regarding the "turrets" previously posted. Share your favorite Insect Trivia here:

I became fascinated with Ant Lions when I was in grade school.
We went to a nature camp for a day and they showed us the little cones they make in the sandy lands in the Pine Barrens and when you would stick a twig or blade of grass inside the dome he would pop out and see if you were something good to eat.

For about a year I would just go out and walk around my farm looking for them and pestering them.

The Mighty Ant - Lion

Originally posted by pop_science
I became fascinated with Ant Lions when I was in grade school.

For about a year I would just go out and walk around my farm looking for them and pestering them.

The Mighty Ant - Lion

They are all over here in Northern California, and I am still fascinated. It wasn't until a few years ago that I googled what they look like. A few months back my son and myself were feeding a few red ants to a couple ant lions, his logic was the red ants were being mean to the black ants...gotta love kids

There has been some research done on how ants figure out how to build their huge underground structures, etc.

None of the ants alone is smart enough to do it. But together they somehow pull it off. The biologists are tearing their hair about it because they are trying to explain it in terms of evolution and chemical communication. They have no concept of "group mind," which seems to be what is at work here.

www.radiolab.org...

Neuroscientists even think the brain is leaderless!

I hope it may some day become clear which theory is more workable.