Ulrich Mueller, professor of integrative biology at The University of Texas at Austin, has spent most of his professional life delving deep into the evolutionary history of leafcutter ants, a species that evolved the ability to cultivate crops tens of millions of years before humans developed agriculture. In this video Mueller visits some leafcutter colonies at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory, a world-class field lab in the center of Austin, and reflects on what fascinates him about the ants and their co-evolutionary relationship to the fungus species they farm.
