Herodotus/Mahabharata question

[Steve Farmer]

Quick bibliographical question:

There is a famous passage in Herodotus (esp. 3.102), raised in
discussing the tribute Indians paid to the Achaemenids, that
speaks of giant Indian ants that supposedly brought gold to the
surface when digging their tunnels. Could someone point me to the
Mahabharata passages that tell the same or a similar story? The
story is discussed, among other places, by B. Lauffer, 'Die Sage
von den goldgrabenden Ameisen,' T'oung Pao (1908) 9:429-452.
Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of that article at hand.

The story illustrates the kinds of story that could pass fairly
readily between India and Greece after the late 6th century BCE,
thanks apparently to the Persian conquests in that period in NW
India. I'm interested in such communications since I'm trying to
track down evidence of more important (if indirect) influences of
the Achaemenids on the canonization of Vedic sources in the
6th-5th centuries.