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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Environment
Graham Readfearn

‘Kingdom of the ant’: northern Australia boasts more than 5,000 species

Iridomyrmex sanguineus species of ant
Iridomyrmex sanguineus ant in monsoonal Australia. Photograph: François Brassard

Alan Andersen has been collecting and recording specimens of Australian ant species for 40 years with about 8,000 of them glued to cardboard triangles in a government laboratory in Darwin in the country’s far north.

Each year hundreds of specimens are added to the collection, most of them likely new species that don’t even have formal scientific names.

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