ANKLE BITER

Words: Chris Stafford

Common name: Red bull ant Scientific name: Myrmecia gulosa The red bull ant plainly left an impression on our earliest explorers. On his 1770 field trip down under with James Cook, Joseph Banks collected a specimen and noted, “Of insects there were but few sorts, and among them only the ants were troublesome to us.” Banks couldn’t have been looking very hard. Australia boasts nearly 1000 species of ants and the nastiest of them all is the bull ant or bulldog ant, a solitary hunter with excellent eyesight, massive mandibles that can deliver a bite to remember and a sting it can use over and over again. Ironically, despite being armed to the teeth and able to fell prey as large as frogs and lizards, these little bruisers prefer a liquid diet of honeydew.…

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Good Organic Gardening (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue #12.6 - 2022

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