We were putting up a new fence to form part of the cat enclosure, and noticed a rather large and fearsome-looking ant-like insect walking at a fast pace across the paving. Neither of us had any idea what it was, so we took photos for later identification.   We later identified this to be a Blue Ant.

What caught our attention was the sheer size of this ant – the one we saw was at least 2.5cm long and according to the information we saw online, it can grow as large as 3cm in length.  We also thought it was beautiful to look at because it has such red legs, and an irridescent blue-black body which, when in the sun, had flashes of green and blue.

Apparently, we saw a female Blue Ant as the males are described as being smaller, and black with white spots.

We were pleased to see that the ant walked right through our courtyard and out into the green grass beyone the house yard.  We much prefer to think of it as being out there, because the Blue Ant has a nasty bite.