Gold-digging ant

In Histories (Book 3, pass pp ages 102 to 105) Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry "ants" lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of the Persian Empire.

These giant ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust.French ethnologist Michel Peissel says that the Himalayan marmot on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province of Pakistan, may have been what Herodotus called giant "ants".

Peissel interviewed the Minaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, collected the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when digging burrows.

The story was widespread in the ancient world and later authors like Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his gold mining section of the Naturalis Historia.

According to the CSIRO, the termites burrow beneath eroded subterranean material which typically masks human attempts to find gold, and ingest and bring the new deposits to the surface.

The Indian Gold Hunters , illustration of giant ants chasing Indian gold-hunters, based on the description by Herodotus in Book Three of his Histories
In this sheet of the Mercator 1569 world map , the text Formicae hic aurum effodientes homines sunt ("Here there are men who unearth the gold of ants.") is located at 38°N 127°E  /  38°N 127°E  / 38; 127 between Çardand and Mien .
Himalayan marmot in central Asia.