Myrmecia gulosa

The red bull ant, Myrmecia gulosa, also called the giant bull ant or bulldog ant, is a large species of bulldog ant in the genus Myrmecia and is abundant across eastern Australia. Workers are roughly 15 to 30 millimetres long, with a red-brown head and thorax, a black rear half of the abdomen, brown-yellow mandibles, long serrated jaws and a venomous sting that can cause severe pain for a couple of days. The ants have poor chemical senses but very keen vision and can spot an intruder up to two metres away. They are solitary, aggressive hunters that subdue prey such as bees and other ants; adults drink the juices of their prey while the flesh is fed to the larvae, and infertile trophic eggs laid by workers supplement the diet of the queen and larvae. Colonies build small mounds in open areas, and the first specimen was collected by Joseph Banks in 1770.