Ants attack Xian's ancient art

The city's plethora of old buildings provide a veritable feast

White ants are threatening the ancient buildings in the 2,000-year-old city of Xian, Chinese media reports.

The subterranean termites love to munch on wood, the older the better, making Xian, with its wooden buildings dating back as far as 1,400 years, vulnerable.

Chen Zhongtang, director of Xian White Ants Prevention and Control Institute, said 18 old buildings were in danger

They include Beilin Museum, built during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and the similarly ancient Dayan Pagoda.

The Beilin Museum is an old Confucian temple turned art museum. It houses the Forest of Steeles, a collection of more than 2300 ancient stone tablets.

Towering monument

The Dayan Pagoda, also known as The Wild Goose Pagoda, is one of the city's most famous sites.

Seven storeys high, it was built by Xuan Zang in 652 to store the holy scriptures and the statues that he brought back from a pilgrimage to India in 629.

The surrounding buildings display wooden reliefs from his journey, which brought Buddhism to China.

According to Mr Chen, the white ants were unknown in Xian until a few years ago, but higher temperatures, damper conditions and increased trade from the south have contributed to their huge growth in numbers.

Crops and homes destroyed

A report in the official China Daily newspaper said that despite great efforts to control their spread, the number of harmful ants had grown quickly in recent years.

But it's not just the city's cultural treasures that are under threat - the ants have already succeeded in damaging a large number of local residents' homes, and in the last year alone have eaten more than a fifth of Xian's timber and cash crops.

The ants are able to wreak havoc in timber thanks to symbiotic protozoa in their gut which allows them to digest wood.

Xian, one of China's most famous ancient cities, was the capital during 13 dynasties of Chinese history.

The city is best known for being home to the celebrated terracotta army - thousands of life-size clay warriors found guarding the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shihuang, who died in the late 3rd Century BC.