A few weeks ago at the farm I saw a giant, I mean GIANT ant.
"That's a bull ant," I was told, "this time of year you have to be careful when you put your hand down anywhere because they're agressive."
There is a nest of the buggers out in one of the paddocks, and whenever someone walks near it or a truck drives near it, the ants come out ready to rumble.
Then, one day last week I was out and saw another one of the ants:
This ant was quite agressive. It saw me coming with the camera, and as I moved around to get a better shot, he made sure he was always facing me and creeping me out thoroughly. I learned from the Bull Ant Fact File that they have excellent vision and have been known to follow and even chase intruders away from their nests. Ew!!!
And, since apparently being a giant ant that watches you isn't scary enough, this one had wings!! WINGS!!!
Can you see the wings?
I seriously contemplated never going outside again. I kept thinking those things could land on me at anytime. Not a happy thought. So, I decided to do some research.
Bull ants belong to the genus Myrmecia. They are very primitive ants and are only found in Australia. When their nests reach a critical mass, winged males and females are hatched and they leave the nest to mate and find a place to start a new colony. Oh, and they eat MEAT. Lovely.
One flew into our building. And while I was frozen in fear someone else caught it.
I took a picture of it with many other objects in order to give you a sense of scale.
from left to right: Australian dollar coin, cell phone, biggest ant I have ever seen, nalgene bottle.
And I took a closeup to really communicate the sheer terror that these things inspire:
Do you SEE the GIANT PINCERS? Are you not filled with the fear of ANTS?
It's like a sci-fi movie, Invasion of the GIANT ANTS!!! AUUGGHH!!!
2 comments:
It reminds e of BullET ants that can be found in Costa Rica
http://www.stlzoo.org/animals/abouttheanimals/invertebrates/insects/antsbeeswasps/bulletant.htm
They are huge as well but only the grubs eat meat.
Inverts are so cool.....
good lord, i'd be eaten alive! fire ants have been known to cross "great" distances to get to me. in fact, once someone else stepped on the mound and they all passed by him and came to bite me! ant's think i'm a delicacy... there would be no way i'd survive being anywhere near agressive, meat eating ants.
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