Myrmecia pyriformis
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
Myrmecia pyriformis, also known as the bull ant or inch ant, is an Australian ant. Myrmecia pyriformis belongs to the genus Myrmecia. It is abundant in many major cities of Australia, but mostly spotted in the eastern states. The species is of a similar appearance to the Myrmecia forficata.
Sizes of the Myrmecia pyriformis range around 14–23 millimetres (0.55–0.91 inches) long. Female workers can grow as large as 26 millimetres (1.0 inch) while males only grow to 18–20 millimetres (0.71–0.79 inches) long. Mandibles and most other features are dark red. Thoraxes are sometimes blackish-brown.
Myrmecia pyriformis is known to survive without a queen. While some species of Myrmecia possess the gamergates, the female workers of Myrmecia pyriformis are also able to reproduce. A colony of the genus was collected in 1998 without a queen, but the colony continued producing workers for the next three years.
Guinness World Records listed Myrmecia pyriformis as the world's most dangerous ant. Myrmecia pyriformis was first described by British entomologist Frederick Smith in his 1858 publication Catalogue of hymenopterous insects in the collection of the British Museum part VI, based... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grampians National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 2 | Great Otway National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 3 | Blue Mountains National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Melbourne | 🇦🇺 Australia |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report an Inch Ant sighting in Melbourne on a given day, based on 663 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 21st most-seen of the 875 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report an Inch Ant in Melbourne on a given day, against about 10% in June–July and October–February, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Inch Ant sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is seen both by day and at night.
Only Melbourne, in our data
Melbourne is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Inch Ant sightings: about 20% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same genus: Myrmecia
The closest relatives of the Inch Ant that you can see in Melbourne (genus Myrmecia, Bull Ants) are Inchman Ant (about 10%), Jack Jumper Ant (about 10%) and Australian Red Bull Ant (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Inch Ant is recorded against all the insects logged in Melbourne (663 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
