Photo courtesy of hanmei at Flickr.com.
A new species of ant has started popping up all along the Gulf Coast – from Miami to Houston, this invasive new ant is breeding quickly because it has no natural predators. These insects are called “Crazy Ants” because they forage in erratic paths and move around in seemingly drunken patterns.
Tom Rasberry, a Houston exterminator, was one of the first people to sound the alarm about these voracious ants. That’s why they are spelled Rasberry, and not Raspberry, like the fruit.
At first, many people welcomed crazy ants because they attack fire ants and are less likely to bite people. But, these ants also prey on beneficial insects, protect harmful insects, and like to nest in electrical equipment. They’ve even started fires by shorting out junction boxes, computers, appliances, and traffic lights!
Crazy ants are an invasive species and their presence is likely to cause unknown side effects. In other areas that they’ve invaded, such as Australia’s Christmas Island, the ants have devastated local ecosystems:
When not gorging themselves on proteins from dying crabs, the ants “farm” carbohydrates from a scale insect that has proliferated and is now beginning to strip trees of foliage. As a result, the rain forest canopy is thinning — threatening the nesting grounds of endemic birds like the Albatross-like Abbott’s Booby — and weeds and undergrowth are beginning to spread through the forests.
The University of Nebraska has an excellent guide for identifying Crazy Ants. If you have crazy raspberry ants in your yard, it will take extreme measures to control these pests. Many over-the-counter insecticides have no effect on crazy ants, and they typically ignore baits. For tips on controlling crazy ants, check out our Advice Section for 5 Easy Steps to deal with Crazy Ants.
Photo courtesy of СимеонIsAnimDom at Flickr.com.
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I have had the pesty little critters show up in my kitchen at least three times. Haven’t noticed anyone say that they will not die in a micro-way. I found a bunch of them on top of my deepfreeze on a dish. I put them in the microwave and turned it on hi but it never phased them one bit.