7am
12 degrees, clear sky and gusting wind.
Steve
back for lunch with a bit of gold from just near our van.
Still
very windy and lots of flies and stink beetles.
Steve
found another little piece near the truck so the two totalled 0.2g. Jeff found
a nice sunbaker that weighed 4.2g – we need some more that size!!
Another
lovely clear night under the stars by the fire, chatting.
Got
an email back about the nest we found – it wasn’t a spider, it is bull ants.
Pest and Disease Information Service (PaDIS)
Biosecurity and Regulation
Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia
Your nest has been identified as most likely belonging to
native Iridomyrmex conifer or stick nest ants. If this
is a stick nest ant nest it is defunct as the sticks have been eroded away.
However, our entomologist has never seen I.
conifer much north of Perth
and would be very surprised to find them in Meekatharra. If not a stick nest
ant, they are most likely to be naive Myrmecia species– one of the bull ants.
It is hard to say though as nest design varies so widely –
species/geographically speaking.
I did see a bull ant in the hole but I thought it was just
wandering around. At least there isn’t any huge spiders down there.
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