My Intruder Battle. NOT for the Squeamish.

Last week when I told you the bad news about spiders I said that next week, which is this week, I would be telling you the good news about spiders. And I will. Next week.

Why the delay?

The reason for this switch is because on Monday evening I saw the biggest ant I’ve ever seen. And he was in MY office! I reckon he was well over half an inch long, or in modern terms, about 20 cm. He was running across my wall.

I looked at him and he looked at me. Then he started to run faster. I, of course, grabbed my camera and took a very poor quality picture, this one…….

This is a seiously big ant. He's next to a door frame.

This is a seiously big ant. He’s next to a door frame.

The flash of the camera spooked him a bit and he started to run faster. At this stage I’m thinking “he’s got to go”. Now I have to point out here I am not normally the killing type. I’m the sort of guy who, when walking down the street, staring at the floor as you do, would sidestep an ant rather than tread on it.

But these ants, and I believe this was a Giant Bull Ant, are aggressive and they have a powerful sting. They are one of the largest ants in the world and this one was in my house! When I was a child I remember somebody telling me that for every human being in the world there are one million ants. So that meant there would be around 6,000,000,000,000,000 ants. One less wouldn’t hurt would it?

Into Battle

mark1

Dark Line

So I grabbed the nearest “newspaper”, which just happened to be my Samsung DVD R150 instruction manual and I clouted him with it. He went down in one. I briefly cursed at the dark line I’d left on the wall and looked down at the ant on the floor. I felt hugely superior as I took a photograph of my victim.

ant-on-floor
I then spent a few moments checking out the quality (yep, poor) of my two pictures before setting about my next task of removing the dead ant from my office floor. Except he was gone!

This ant was not dead! This thing had managed to crawl off somehow, hole up somewhere (I couldn’t find him) and who knows, like Rambo, perhaps he’s waiting until he has fully recovered and then he’s going to come to get me. Forget Rambo…

I have Antbo in the house!

I don’t know what the recovery period of an ant is, but if my posts on this blog come to an abrupt end in the near future, you’ll know that I have had round two with Antbo…. and lost.

Footnote: Further research suggests that according to E O Wilson, a noted Harvard biologist, there are between 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants and 100,000,000,000,000,000 ants in the world. That means there are between 1.6 million and 16 million ants per person. So the information I was given as a child may well have been accurate at that time.

And if these figures are true, it is clear that the population growth of ants is far and away outstripping that of humans. So I am proud of my actions. Perhaps more of us should take the time out to grab our Samsung DVD R150 instruction manuals and do our bit for mankind.

The good news about spiders will be next week. Promise.

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{ 10 comments… add one }
  • Scott Triemer January 29, 2019, 3:02 pm |

    Growing up in the Sydney suburb of St. Ives during the late sixties, before fire crackers became banned, some friends and i came upon a huge nest of these ants. We called them bull – joes. A few of us had been bitten in the past, and knew just how much pain these bad boys could unleash. it was also noticed that the circumference of their entry hole was a little wider than a penny bunger. Having a few packets of these, it was decided a bit of payback was long overdue. After dropping one in the hole and staying around to watch the explosion, perhaps too close, some burning smoking ants were blasted basically in our faces. some fell down shirtfronts causing all kinds of hellish screams from the victims. the battle went on for days until we finally ran out of bungers. They rebuilt their nest every night, and we took to walking past on the other side of the road to avoid them. What an awesome army they were, afraid of nothing!

    • BobinOz January 29, 2019, 5:17 pm |

      Yes, they certainly are an awesome army, there isn’t around 6,000,000,000,000,000 (probably even more now) of them on the planet for no reason. I’m surprised they didn’t drag you all down the hole with them.

      I was lucky, I only had one ant to deal with, if he’d have had all his mates with him, I think I would have crossed to the other side of the road as well.

  • Jodie dines April 24, 2017, 4:59 am |

    My 14 ye old son luke yelled out to me one day to come see this ant that he’d just smashed with his huge size 13 tm’s (shoes)
    Well I wasn’t prepared for what I saw next ?The thing got up shook itself off , it seemed to get cheesed off so luke did a big overhand swing and struck him again …. same thing he just got up …. well we both panicked after that…. I ran got the spray , sprayed until he was white …. thinking this was at last the end of him I picked him up with a tissue which he then bit me through… we were both screaming then , it was a very painful bite much like a burn … luke grabbed some big scissors and cut the blighter into three and yes only then did we have a dead ant ????people don’t believe how tuff that freak of nature was ?And just how big .
    I’m not scared of snakes or spiders but , hell no to these ants ?.

    • BobinOz April 24, 2017, 8:21 pm |

      You were lucky there was only one of him, if his mates had been around, I’m not sure you would have been able to hold them off 🙂 🙂

  • jen July 3, 2014, 6:28 pm |

    Consider yourself lucky …. i have been bitten and on more than one occasion.
    The most recent was while bush walking with a visiting American friend … who was startled to find me dropping my jeans in the middle of the fairly well visited walking path…
    I was i believe cursing and stomping on the jeans then grabbed them and started running , while advising him to also run … the nest had started to swarm
    I had three get inside my jeans up to the back of my knee, when i knelt to take a photo they all struck with a fury …. took weeks to settle down …
    i think they hurt more than just about any other bite / sting i have ever had

    • BobinOz July 4, 2014, 11:42 pm |

      One day, and it may be soon, your memories of that incident will just be very funny indeed. Not funny at the time though is it?

  • BobinOz August 20, 2009, 12:52 pm |

    “big ass brownish-black ants” – yep, that’s the ones! you have 3 choices. 1) Tread on them. (V. slow) 2) Use some liquid ant killer drops that all the workers yummy up and take back to the Queen who snuffs it and then all the others lose the will to live 3) Call pest control (recommended). Kiss goodbye to $250 and all the ants.

    Good luck Florida Girl

    Cheers

    Bob

  • Florida Girl In Sydney August 20, 2009, 11:24 am |

    I found your blog because I am also dealing with ant infestation. We moved into this house a couple of months ago and cannot get rid of the little beasts. I think we have a few varieties and they’re living in the wall cavities. We have brown coastal ants in the kitchen and some big ass brownish-black ants upstairs in various rooms. What should I do?? Heeeelllllp!!!

  • BobinOz July 21, 2009, 9:03 pm |

    Ouch!
    Through the sock aswell! That’s almost certainly what happened.
    He got what was coming to him, one less Rambo ant for the rest of us to worry about. Did you use a Samsung DVD R150 instruction manual? Or have you found another way?
    Mine never surfaced again, so I must have done enough damage.
    Hope your daughter is OK, I’ve heard any “4 way action” antiseptic cream help.
    Take care
    Bob

  • Bella Ozfemme July 21, 2009, 8:18 pm |

    This evening while helping me prepare dinner in the kitchen, my daughter was stung on the big toe by an ant that looked just liked the one in your photos. The strange thing was she had a thick pair of socks on. As she’d had the socks on for some time, I can’t imagine it had been inside the sock…. so it bit her through the sock …??? The nasty little b*gger was done away with and. yes, he’s dead.

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