Mantis Ant (Australian Wildlife Encounters No.7)

There's no denying that Australia is full of creepy-crawlies. six of the ten most venomous snakes live here as well as a menagerie of cockroaches, mosquitoes, scorpions and spiders.

In truth though most Australians live in suburban cities and a lot of Australia's insects and bugs are pretty shy.

I'm absolutely certain that if you went wandering around the thousands of miles of outback something would sooner or later bite, sting or scratch you, but nothing (except for perhaps sharks and crocs) is going to hunt you down. (erm well ok maybe the mosquitoes)

Having said all that digging in our garden is always an experience. In the UK you occasionally unearth a worm, garden snail and woodlouse or two, here the creatures coming to the surface are invariably more exotic and surprising to my English eyes.

I occasionally come across the odd red-back spider (which DOES scare the bejesus out of me) and there's a fair number of bugs flying around that would similarly terrify me if they landed on my face.

Last week we witnessed huge number of soldier beetles flying onto the blossom laden trees and at the weekend I spotted a few ants on a plant outside of our front door which turned out to be (I think) mantis ants. I looked them up and found they are remarkably voracious. It made me glad to know they were only 5mm in size! Here's a picture I took of one before I learned that they were actually very good at jumping!