Meat ants on the march: colossal nest discovered near Queanbeyan

The Canberra Times

A Canberra ecologist and Tim the Yowie Man uncovered what could be Australia’s biggest meat ant nest near Queanbeyan, measuring more than four metres across.

Transcript

00:00Mark Lintermans claims that this little-known reserve between Bungendore

00:06and Queendien is home to Australia's biggest meat ant nest and he wants to

00:13prune them. So what have we got here? A nice meat ant nest. It's about the standard size.

00:21And you're going to show me something a little bit bigger? I'm going to show you something

00:25at least twice the size it is. Kia, this is it. You're claiming this is the biggest meat

00:33ant nest you've ever seen in Australia? Biggest one I've ever seen. Yeah, I walk this track

00:39fairly regularly, look to my right, saw this meat ant nest and I've been looking at it for

00:43the last 10 years and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And you want to measure

00:46it today? I want to measure it today. I want to lay down the challenge. Somebody proved me

00:50wrong that there's another meat ant nest bigger somewhere. So you want to measure the length,

00:58the width and the height, is that right? Yeah, we'll have a track at the height. So 10 years

01:03you've been waiting to measure it? Yep. Do you think there's going to be anyone else out there

01:06who's got enough enthusiasm to measure their local meat ant nests? I severely doubt it.

01:13The ants are starting to get active. Yep. I think my claim will remain unchanged. All right,

01:19so this is the width. And what have we got here on the width? The width is 3.25 metres. 325. Yep,

01:27325 metres. Yep. Yep. Going for the length now. 400 on the nose. The height on this side is about 420.

01:37Yep. On the other side, well you have five, just over five. If you want to stand in the ant nest and

01:44hold it for me, then that'll be great. How about that? Just no hat.

01:52So Mark, on this side of the mound, there's a little bit of a digging. How long has that been there?

01:58Well, that was put in earlier this year. That's from the last season. The echidnas are only just

02:03waking up now, but that's what made that digging. So the echidnas been hungry looking for a feed?

02:07They come here every year and have a bit of a scrounge around. Give it such a big,

02:11uh, a big nest. Don't you think there'd be lots of echidnas? This would be like,

02:15this would be the go-to place. I reckon this might be the secret one. There's only one guy knows about it.

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