One of the most important developments in human civilisation was the practice of sustainable agriculture.

But we were not the first - ants have been doing it for over 50 million years

Just as farming helped humans become a dominant species, it has also helped leaf-cutter ants become dominant herbivores, and one of the most successful social insects in nature

leaf-cutter ants have developed a system to try and keep their gardens pest-free; an impressive feat which has evaded even human agriculturalists

Leaf-cutter ants put their freshly-cut leaves in gardens where they grow a special fungus that they eat

The ants have also adopted the practice of weeding

A curious observation was that some worker ants had a white wax-like substance across their bodies. When they looked at it under a microscope scientists discovered that this covering was not a wax, but a bacterium

These bacteria are part of the group actinobacteria, which produce over 80% of the antibiotics used by humans