This post is in response to a comment made by my Sister regarding the tally of things we had seen. Of course there are many things we have observed and many of them, like ants, are extremely common.
What you might not know however, is that there are possibly over 6,500 species of ants in Australia. We have seen quite a few different species and probably seen over 6,500 ants so far!
My first encounter with ants during this adventure was in the dunny at Macquarie Woods. I really meant to take a photo of the dunny as it was the stereotypical outback dunny, but instead of spiders and cobwebs there was a colony of black ants all following a series of paths carrying what looked like small eggs. Anyway it made for interesting watching while sitting doing the business!
The next interesting event was at Forbes. I decided that my toe nails really needed a trim. Even though I was outside I was trying not to drop them on the ground. However, as happens, one did fall in the path of an ant, who obviously decided he could put it to use and carted it off. I wondered whether this was usual so I placed another on the ground and it was soon rounded up and taken away. So I decided that they obviously have a use for toe nails so I gave them the rest. So, somewhere in Forbes is an ants nest complete with toe nails!
We did have some fun with the ants. We found out that one species liked the dog biscuits. As the dog bowl was full of ants I tipped the biscuits onto the ground. The next day Simon noticed that the pile of biscuits had got smaller. We looked around the area and realised that the ants were trying to take them one by one to their nest. The trouble was the biscuit was too heavy for one ant. We found out that some ants were much smarter than others. 2-3 ants were an effective team and worked together well to move the biscuit. But some ants would just crowd out the biscuit and they couldn't work together to move it. The ants nest was a good 10 metres from the pile and it took over 24 hours to get even close. Unfortunately for the ants it rained, so we think they lost their booty and most never made it.
Our next encounter was not so pleasant. At Darlington Point on the Murrumbidgee River we decided to try our luck at catching Murray Cod. Ants were all over the place and they loved the cheese we were using as bait. These ants were a nuisance and would climb all over you a give you a nip. Of course they would do this most, when you are trying to concentrate, some were even known to go down our pants and nip our bums, just when we were trying to tie on a new hook. Not very nice!
Our last encounter for the moment was quite amusing, but not for the dogs! We moved up the river to a lovely spot near Narrandera. Here, we did see several different species and the largest colony of ants I have ever seen. The colony was on a track, it was about 3 metres wide and 6 metres long. The whole area was a sea of ants. The first time we walked through it we were wearing walking boots and we couldn't quite understand why the dogs, particularly Scoobie was a bit upset and kept sitting down on the ants which made it worse, eventually he ran into the water. The next time we walked along the track as we got closer to the nest (we were wearing thongs (flip flops)) we started to get bitten. Now these were bigger ants than before and the bite was far more vicious. We didn't go over the nest and walked swiftly back and told Scoobie to run for it, as we then realised what had been wrong the first time! Shaggy of course rubbed his face in the ants and then just ran off madly down the track! Both dogs were fine and so were our feet!
So ends the Ant stories for now. But onto other Birds and Beasts.
We did have some firsts at Narrandera. We saw our first snake, which put on a great show for us and swam through the water. It is a red bellied black snake.
Simon also caught Turtle! Long Necked Turtle!
