Electronics-Loving 'Crazy Ants' Invading Southern US 250
From an article at the Houston Chronicle (not The Onion) comes a report of concern to anyone in a warm climate with, well, electronics. From the article:
"According to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, invasive 'crazy ants' are slowly displacing fire ants in the southeastern United States. These 'Tawny Crazy Ants' have a peculiar predilection toward electronics as well.
'They nest in electronics and create short circuits, as they create a contact bridge between two points when they get electrocuted they release an alarm pheromone,' says UT research assistant Edward LeBrun.
'The other ants are attracted to the chemicals that other ants give off,' he adds. At this point, more ants arrive and create a larger nest."
The L.A. Times also has a report, which says "Thus far, the crazy ants are not falling for the traditional poisons used to eliminate fire ant mounds. And when local mounds are destroyed manually, they are quickly regenerated.
'They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,' LeBrun said. 'There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It's very expensive.'"
Re:The future is past (Score:2, Informative)
It's from Phase IV
Re:What do these things eat? (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like they eat mostly bugs, grains, and small animals.
For natural pest control may I suggest house centipedes? Those fast, long-legged, grey-brown guys with the racing stripes. They are non-aggressive and typically incapable of stinging humans until they get quite large (they can live for almost a decade), they carry no known human diseases or parasites, and are voracious hunters whose favorite prey include termites, silverfish, bedbugs, and young cockroachs. And unlike ants they're completely uninterested in your food.
Re:Controlling infestations (Score:5, Informative)
Find the ant mounds and sprinkle some cornmeal around them. They will take the cornmeal into the nest and all the ants, including the queen, will eat it. They can eat it but they cannot digest it so they will all die. If enough people would do this it could eliminate the ant problem. It has worked very well on all of the fire ant mounds that I have doctored in this way.
Re:Good idea! (Score:5, Informative)
"...as they create a contact bridge between two points when they get electrocuted they release an alarm pheromone," says UT research assistant Edward LeBrun. "The other ants are attracted to the chemicals that other ants give off," he adds.
What kind of survival mechanism is that? "Oh! There's danger over there. Let's all go check it out..."
Given that(among the ants that don't have even cooler mechanisms, like specialized suicide soldiers who blow themselves up to shower the enemy with toxins) "swarm the enemy and keep biting and stinging without regards for casualties until nothing that isn't us is still moving" is considered a valid strategy, the chemical signalling actually makes sense: If an ant from another colony, or a predatory insect/arachnid, attacks a single ant, the ant's body automatically releases the alarm pheremone and the attacker gets zerg rushed.
It's just that, against implacable electronics that are totally indifferent to anything except being insulated by the uncounted bodies of the slain, this tactic doesn't work very well(see also: mammals that 'freeze' to avoid predators; but discover that cars aren't visual hunters; but they do kill anything that gets in their way)...
Re:Good idea! (Score:4, Informative)
It's more like "Someone's in our base killing our doodz. Let's go give him a good shoeing!".
Also, soldier and worker ants don't reproduce. The way they propagate their genes is by proxy, through the queen, so that explains their willingness to sacrifice themselves to protect her - hence the banzai charge. The genetics of ants (and wasps & bees) is odd. If you're one of the sterile castes the queen is more related to you than you are. Or something like that.
Re:I don't miss fire ants (Score:4, Informative)
Fire ants do interbreed.
http://www.caes.uga.edu/commodities/fieldcrops/forages/events/FC13/03/ANR-1248%20Fire%20ants%20and%20cattle.pdf [uga.edu]
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/07/fire_ants_joes_outdoor_office.html [al.com]
http://books.google.com/books?id=vxt5BqOKEAIC&pg=PA510&lpg=PA510&dq=fire+ants+interbreed&source=bl&ots=8eWZaSkLp_&sig=uJHTanPl1LV7mhieoReC1eX0plc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dwiYUdimJ-rI0gHttIGwBQ&ved=0CEwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=fire%20ants%20interbreed&f=false [google.com]
Also, they do bite before stinging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_ants [wikipedia.org]
Different plant "species", such as of pine, do interbreed as well. The distinction of species vs. sub-species is often blurred in the wild.