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 Lintemans claims that this little-known reserve between Bungendore and

00:06Quindian is home to Australia's biggest meat ant nest, and he wants to prove them.

00:16So what have we got here? A nice meat ant nest. It's about the standard size.

00:22And you're going to show me something a little bit bigger? I'm going to show you something's

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

00:32meat ant nest you've ever seen in Australia? Biggest one I've ever seen. Yeah, I walk this

00:38track fairly regularly, look to my right, saw this meat ant nest, and I've been looking at it

00:43for the 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 wrong,

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

00:59and the height, is that right? Yeah, we'll have a track at the height. So 10 years you've been

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

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

01:13The ants are starting to get active. Yep.

01:15I think my claim will remain unchanged. All right, so this is the width. And what have we got here on

01:22the width? The width is 3.25 metres. 325. Yep, 325. 3.25 metres, yep? Yep. Going for the length now.

01:33400 on the nose. The height on this side is about 420. Yep. On the other side, well you have five,

01:39just over five. If you want to stand in the ant nest and hold it for me, then that'll be great.

01:47How 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 chidnas are only just

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

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

02:12a big nest, don't you think there'd be lots of echidnas? This would be like, this would be the

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

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