A new species of ant has been discovered in a rehabilitated section of a bauxite mine in the Northern Territory.

Discovered by the CSIRO’s Ben Hoffman at Rio Tinto’s mining lease near Nhulunbuy, the new ant has been named the ‘Kohout’s spiny ant’ and belongs to the Polyrhachis genus meaning “many spines”.

Dr Hoffman said there has been several new ant species found recently in the region, but the Kohout’s spiny ant was one of the most interesting.

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“It’s got these enormous bull-like horned spines on the back of its body,” he said.

“It’s particularly interesting, but to put it in perspective, we’ve put 98 new species into the ant collection here in Darwin this year alone.

“We actually have no idea how many ant species there are out there because we keep on finding so many new ones.”

Dr Hoffman said he has already got an ant named after him, so he chose to name this ant after retired scientist Rudy Kohout, who published numerous papers on the genus Polyrhachis.

“He (Rudy) dedicated many years to the taxonomy of this particular group of ants, so I thought this one was so interesting that it would be a real privilege to name one of these ants after him, and he graciously accepted that.”

– ABC