Diario de reiasai97

It took me longer than I would have liked to get to this point.
But here I am and here I go:

I never thought I'd see a Punk Ant (Camponotus thadeus) alive and thought that it would forever be an ant to look at when keying out Camponotus species.
@matthew_connors likely thought similar but decided to take the reins on organizing a team to climb one of the few mountains Punks Ants were restricted to, and it is a team I was a part of!
He provides more details on these show-stopping girls and a more succinct background of the climb in his post.

You see, Mt. Finnigan isn't somewhere you get to with relative "ease". The steep ascent combined with the vegetation, the landscape, and the lack of trails, or paths; to lay our eyes on the Punk Ants, and their brilliant mohawks, was going to take some effort. But with a straight distance of ~120km from Cairns, it was as close as it was going to get and too good of an opportunity to pass.

After weeks of planning (thanks Matt and your liaison person), a 362km drive from Cairns to a night of camping in Cooktown, meeting our other team members, and another 42km drive to meet the base of Mt. Finnigan. The actual adventure started.

Our team was led by the brilliant local naturalist, Lewis Roberts.
Lewis knows Mt Finnigan from years of exploring the mountain and guided us, on a harsh 40-degree celcius day, through riparian, open woodland, bare exposed ridges, dense she-oak stands, and rainforest along our ascent.

There's nothing quite like the cooling relief rainforest vegetation provides at 840m elevation after hours of hiking, in what was quite an intense heat and ascent.

Soon after walking in the rainforest, we sighted our first Punk Ant, which was a great boost to morale (for me anyway), but with only three, or four hours before we were hiking in the dark we pushed forward to find a suitable area to pitch our tents at 950m elevation (Matthew, Caitlin and myself). Other team members hiked even higher towards 1020m (I wouldn't doubt if they went further).

But we made the most of the night after a good rest while listening to the chorus of birds calling at dusk. We donned our head torches and did some spotlighting where I saw some Prolasius, Heteroponera, Myrmecia, Rhytidoponera and a few other amazing vertebrates and invertebrates.
The morning after we explored our campsite even further, whilst waiting for our other members to meet us during their descent, in hopes of spending time with the Punk Ants but to no avail. They just weren't around our camp.

Once our other team members met up with us, we all made a quick descent (safely) back down to where we started to see Punk Ants and spent a good hour or more with these spectacular ants imaging and observing them in all their ant glory.
Watching interactions between castes, their behavior when disturbed, and following their trails. Seeing that these ants were also quite often cleaning themselves, seeing some trophallaxis happening between workers, and seeing some individuals shaking their gaster after being disturbed were all awesome highlight moments with the Punk Ants (I guess I am a little nerdy).

But given the chance of a slightly cooler day and maybe a little more time, I'd do the climb to visit these ants again given the opportunity. A trip to remember and a great way to cap off 2023.

Go check Caitlin Henderson's (She's Got Legs Photography) awesome content on Punk Ants from the trip:
Here, Here and Here