Page 115 - World of Animals - Deadly Predators

Australia’s carnivorous ants

7. How big is a meat ant nest?
Most nests are a metre or two wide

(between 3.2 and 6.4 feet), but some

colonies connect several satellite nests
together to make a ‘super-nest’. These

can stretch 650 metres (2,100 feet)!

© CSIRO

12. Why don’t meat

ants eat their fellow
colony mates?

Meat ants identify each other by smell.
Their antennae are very sensitive to scents,
so when they encounter a strange ant,
© Getty Images they sniff out their odour to find out which
colony they belong to. They tend to do this
in open areas where background scents
won’t get in the way.

13. Do meat ants hunt
8. How many meat ants are there in a nest?

A single meat ant nest can have anywhere from 11,000 big animals?
Meat ants track and kill enormous insects,
to 64,000 ants. A linked system of several nests can like giant lacewings and genoveva
have hundreds of thousands. azure butterflies. But when it comes to
vertebrates, they prefer to scavenge rather
than hunt.

9. Can meat ants really

kill cane toads? 14. Do meat ants sting?
Meat ants don’t have a sting, but
Cane toads are an infamous invasive they don’t seem to need one. All
species that was introduced to Australia their predator power comes from
to eat crop-destroying beetles. But their serrated mandibles.
few carnivores will touch these toxic 15. Where do meat
amphibians, and now they’re out of
ants live?
control. Meat ants are one of the few
Meat ants are native to Australia,
species that can handle the toxins. These and they’re such successful
ruthless killers cut the legs off cane toad hunters that they’ve managed
tadpoles and take the meat home. to spread across most of the
country. They like warm climates
10. What does a meat and sandy soil and will set up
home anywhere with a ready
ant queen look like? supply of invertebrates to hunt.
This includes open heathland,
Meat ant queens are almost twice the size
forests, roadsides and even towns.
of the workers and are black instead of
red and blue. They have red legs and red-
brown hairs.

11. Are any animals
brave enough to eat

meat ants?

Echidnas aren’t afraid to enter a meat ant
nest. Sometimes known as spiny anteaters,
these toothless marsupials are ant vacuum
cleaners. They break into the nests with
their claws, poke their long beaks inside © Thinkstock
and use their sticky tongues to scoop up
the colony.

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