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Atta texana
Leafcutter ants "cut and process fresh vegetation (leaves, flowers, and grasses) to serve as the nutritional substrate for their fungal cultivars." Atta ants have three pairs of spines and a smooth exoskeleton on the upper surface of the thorax.
This was in section 39 of the LBJ Grasslands. It was a dry prairie area or mesa. The soil had ocean fossils showing. Parts of this area of Texas have Crustaceous era ocean bottom exposed.
Lyndon B. Johnson Grasslands is 20,313 acres located in north-central Texas. Before the federal government purchased them back in the late 1930s, the grasslands were mostly abandoned farms and ranches suffering from severe soil errosion from poor agricultural practices.
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