Ant Hill Wood.

 I chosen a photo of an Eciton burchelli (South American Army Ant ) to begin this ant site of mine, as it has possibly the largest jaws (or mandibles to give them their correct name) of any ant I have ever seen; although there are several ant species around the world which have large and impressive mandibles, and even those with small ones can give a good bite when they feel like it. Army ant soldiers cannot feed themselves, and have to be fed by smaller workers; and while perhaps the size of an Army ant soldier's jaws isn't everything, it certainly makes them a very formidable adversary indeed to be bitten by!

I welcome you as the  visitor to Ant Hill Wood. Thank you for coming!

 So hello everyone who drops in for a stroll around my Ant Hill Wood, which is depicted in the English rural scene at the top of this site! Cricket on the village green is so typically English I always think; and as my site is mainly about ant species I have found in England and other parts of Britain, with a few exceptions of ants from Europe, Australia and the USA; I thought that the site needed to have an "English" feel about it for the benefit of my visitors from around the globe.

An excellent ant forum is run by my wife Jenny, and has hundreds of members around the world, myself included. Her forum is Ant Hill World UK, and can be found by clicking this picture here} 

I live in the West Sussex county town of Chichester, which is actually classed as a Cathedral City, due to the fact that it has a Norman Cathedral which was built in the year 1075AD, but was not consecrated until 1108AD by Bishop Luffa. Chichester is situated on the South Coast of England and was a Roman town of some importance, as Fishbourne Roman Palace is just nearby. It is about a 3 mile walk from my home to the South Downs, which is a formation of chalk and flint hills stretching from Eastbourne in East Sussex, to Winchester in Hampshire to the West, which again is a Cathedral City and the old capital town of the ancient Kingdom of Wessex.

This is me doing my favourite pastime, and that is looking at wild ant colonies. In this particular case I am out with my wife, who is video filming the nest mounds of Formica rufa wood ants. In the second photo you can see a fairly large thatched mound that is the typical nest which wood ant species build.

 For further enjoyment of this little adventure of ours, please view my Ant Video page, where you find several new videos of this species recently added from filming done on June 3rd 2008.

If you read my "Happy Days" page, you will perhaps gain some insight as to what kind of a person this ant lover really is? So please enjoy this Ant Hill of mine and judge for yourself what makes me what I am, and just what makes me so fascinated by the family Formicidae, or ants as they are commonly known!

Younger ant lovers may enjoy the stories of Honey the Meadow Ant, which can be found on my "Ant Tales" page.

I hope you will enjoy this ant site of mine and take delight in the information to be found herein, which is mainly intended for the novice ant lover; and is not meant to be an in-depth study of Myrmecology ( The study of ants ). 

Ant photos placed on this site have been taken by myself, or my wife, unless otherwise stated and credited to the individual photographer.

The above photo of my Messor barbarus was taken by my wife, and you can see the major worker sitting on the right wing of the horse fly. (Photo taken on August 7th, 2007)

Cameras used by us to obtain all of our own ant pictures are as follows. Fuji Finepix S602zoom and Finepix S9500, Minolta Dimage Z1; and Jenny is now using a Samsung Pro 815, which is a digital hybrid SLR. This gives good close up shots due to its high resolution lens. 

Please Note } All photos on this site are either owned by myself, or used with the express kind permission of each individual photographer. Under copyright law, it is an offence for anyone to use them for public display, or to use any other information found on this site done by me, without first gaining my full prior consent to do so!

 Army ant photo used with kind permission from Alex Wild - Myrmecos.net

Contacting Me

I can be Emailed at the address below, but do reserve the right not to reply if I consider your mail to be inappropriate or offensive. I will reply to questions about my site ONLY.  Please remember this prior to contacting me, and send your mail for the attention of Wood Ant. Thanks!

This site is fondly dedicated to my dear departed father, who by getting me to help him in his garden, lead me to the study of insect life, and the eventual study and keeping of ants; and also to my lovely wife Jenny.

I thank my parents for allowing me to keep ants inside their home and release ants into their garden, and Jenny for putting up with all the ants I have kept in our spare bedroom over the years we have been together.

My thanks also go out to all of you ant lovers around the world who may visit this ant site of mine, as your interest and good wishes that some of you have expressed in your emails to me about the site are very much appreciated.

I would also like to extend a very big thanks, to all the members of Ant Hill World who gave their kind permission for me to use their ant photos. In particular, I'd like to thank my very good friend Heath Cope; as if he had not joined our thriving little ant community, I would never have got to know such a nice guy who takes such great ant photos! And not forgetting Tom; who lives in Somerset, for getting some of the most truly remarkable close up shots of ants that I've had the privilege to show on my site!

I am sorry I can't mention all you guys who have given your consent to use your photos by name, but you know you all have my gratitude for allowing me to use some really superb material, as your photos help to make this site on ants come alive for people everywhere who are into studying the fascinating world of ants.

 It is due to the guys from as far away as Australia, to as close to home as France and other parts of Europe; and not forgetting my many friends across the "big pond" in the United States of America, plus of course the guys here in the United Kingdom, that many of the excellent close up photos of different ant species appear on this Ant Hill site of mine.

Cheers guys, you're the best!!