This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 32.7222° S, 134.8368° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Please don't step on the dinosaurs. That is the actual advice given to visitors at Poochera, and it is not a joke.
Nothomyrmecia macrops – the dinosaur ant – is one of the most significant insects on earth. It is regarded as the most primitive living ant, a species so close to the wasp ancestors of all ants that finding it alive was a genuine event in entomology. It was known from two specimens collected in Western Australia in 1931 and then lost to science entirely for decades, until Dr Robert Taylor rediscovered it near Poochera in 1977 – by accident, while camping, having stopped there because of car trouble.
That is one of the great stories in Australian natural history, and it happened in a grain town on the Eyre Peninsula.
The giant ant in Anniversary Park commemorates it, and Streaky Bay regional tourism tells visitors to go and see it. The ants themselves are still there, in the mallee around the town, active on cold nights – which is why the warning about stepping on them is sincere.
Poochera is a strategic grain receival centre for surrounding farmers producing grain and livestock. Its name comes from an Aboriginal derivation of King Poojeeri, a local king who died in 1917.
A town of a few dozen people with a monument to an ant is unusual. A town with a monument to the most scientifically important ant in the world is unique, and the sculpture is doing entirely serious work.
Nobody wrote down the height and the installation date.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Current Streaky Bay regional tourism explicitly tells visitors to see the Giant Dinosaur Ant at Anniversary Park. The sculpture commemorates the rare dinosaur ant rediscovered near Poochera in 1977.
ACCESS
Navigate to Anniversary Park in Poochera. The park is a public recreation area with visitor facilities; use lawful town parking rather than stopping on the Eyre Highway.
