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Yellow ants: Meet the sniffer dog helping to get rid of yellow ants

yellow antsImage source, Wet Tropics Management Authority

Have you heard of yellow crazy ants? They are one of the most troublesome species in the world and are causing lots of problems in Australia.

Yellow ants spray acid when they are irritated and they can harm populations of frogs, lizards and some birds in Australia.

Well, authorities now have a secret weapon - detection dog Fury!

Fury is a black Labrador who can sniff out the ants and help get rid of them.

Image source, Wet Tropics Management Authority
Image caption,

Fury the sniffer dog has been hired to help find the pesky yellow ants

The origin of yellow crazy ants isn't known but they are found in tropical and subtropical regions.

Gareth Humphreys is part of the team tackling the ants at Wet Tropics Management Authority in Queensland, Australia. Gareth says the ants were first detected in Queensland in 2001, and since then have spread throughout the area.

He says: "They do a large amount of damage to native wildlife, they start with other invertebrates, other ants, then they eventually start making their way up the food chain and so they start taking up the frogs, the geckos and eventually they push out all the other native ants in the system and come to dominate the ecosystem."

The ants spray harmful acid as a way of stopping the animals and insects they attack. It's become a big problem in Australia because these ants are eating the wildlife. The insects also form super colonies containing thousands of queens.

The plans to get rid of the ants has been going on for nearly 10 years and progress has been made but there are still many left.

Yellow crazy ant facts
  • They have long slender bodies and skinny legs

  • They do not bite or sting but spray acid

  • They are named after their frantic movements and yellow brownish body colour

Image source, Wet Tropics Management Authority

Enter Fury the sniffer dog! Fury has been recruited because of her fantastic sense of smell, "she is a wonderful tool", says Gareth.

The process of finding the ants can be long and especially when targeting areas with only a few remaining ants, that's why Fury is useful in speeding up the search and sniffing the ants out quickly.

With the ants spraying acid, could this harm Fury? Gareth says that the dog is only used when there are low levels of ants so the "amount of acid is very low so it's not so much an issue there".

The two-year-old Labrador has been trained not to put her nose into a nest, instead she will sit down to signal she has found something.