SCIENTISTS have discovered eight-foot high, 4,000-year-old termite mounds in the Amazon.

The piles of earth, which are as old as the pyramids, cover an area bigger than Britain and are visible from space.

4 Scientists have found eight-foot tall termite mounds in the Amazon Credit: Cell.com

The mounds are not nests but the product of a slow and steady excavation of interconnected underground tunnels, according to a study of soil samples.

The insects deposited huge quantities of dug out soil to create around 200 million cone-shaped mounds, each about 8.2ft tall and 29.5ft wide.

Together the mounds cover an area of 230,000 square kilometres, significantly greater than England, Scotland and Wales combined.

And the termites' activities over thousands of years produced enough excavated soil to fill Wembley Stadium 2,500 times over.

4 The termites' activities over 4,000 years needed enough soil to fill Wembley Stadium 2,500 times over Credit: Cell.com

4 A map shows the distribution of the nests, with core areas pictured in orange Credit: Cell.com

At ground level, they are largely hidden from view among the thorny scrub caatinga forests unique to the semi-desert region - but they show up on Google Earth satellite images.

Study leader Professor Stephen Martin, from the University of Salford, said: "These mounds were formed by a single termite species that excavated a massive network of tunnels to allow them to access dead leaves to eat safely and directly from the forest floor.

"The amount of soil excavated is over 10 cubic kilometres, equivalent to 4,000 great pyramids of Giza, and represents one of the biggest structures built by a single insect species."

The scientists collected soil samples from the centres of 11 mounds and used dating technology to estimate their age.

4 The mounds can be seen from space Credit: Cell.com

The results, published in the journal Current Biology, showed the mounds were between 690 and 3,820 years old.

Termite mounds have a complex inner structure with numerous shafts and tunnels that serve as a ventilation system for underground nests.

The constructions investigated by the scientists are not abandoned ancient relics.

Their builders, all members of the termite species Syntermes dirus, still inhabit large colonies incorporating as many as 60 mounds, the study found.

Prof Martin added: "It's incredible that, in this day and age, you can find an 'unknown' biological wonder of this sheer size and age still existing, with the occupants still present."

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Many questions about the termite colonies remain unanswered, said the researchers.

For instance, attempts to explore the colonies with a fibre optic scope had failed to locate a single "royal chamber" housing the termite queen.

The mounds were also distributed in a strangely regular way that did not appear to be driven by aggressive encounters between neighbouring colonies.

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