Australian Meat Ant with dinner

This week I have been having a fascination with ants as this is the time when I note they are incredibly active. They also know it is Christmas time soon and they are out doing their shopping and stocking up the larders in each nest.

I came across this ant today when out visiting a garden, and he was moving so fast, I could not get too close, and perfect focus was near impossible. So my apologies for the quality of this image today.

I followed him along the footpath for many metres, tried stamping my foot by him and in front of him, and it made no difference to his speed. He was not slowing down for anything. So I snapped away.

In his jaws he was carrying an earwig, no doubt running back to the nest - with food for the babies or to be stored for eating later. The earwig was larger than the ant which was carrying him in a rugby style headlock, with the jaws sunk into the back of the earwig's neck, it head under the ant's chin.

I am almost certain this ant is known as the meat ant, Iridomyrmex purpureus. These ants generally construct huge nests, often in sandy or gravel rich soil. The nests can contain tens of thousands of workers and indeed the amount of ant traffic coming and going from the nest can be so large that it can create paths or ant highways leading to and from the nest.

Meat ants consume a range of items for food; they are very good at catching prey and also scavenging animal and plant material. You can see his catch in more gruesome detail in LARGE.