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'Crazy ants' invade the U.S. Southeast:

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R

Ripclawe

Banned
a-rather-unpleasant-close-up-of-the-nylanderia-vulva-the-new-nightmare-pests.jpg


New research says Rasberry crazy ants are displacing established populations of fire ants all over the Gulf Coast

Aside from their nasty sting, fire ants are a relatively docile bunch.

They'll leave you alone as long as you keep an eye out for their mounds. But a new, and possibly more treacherous threat is mounting in the form of invasive "crazy ants," which are beginning to displace fire ant populations from Texas all the way east to Florida, notes Douglas Main at LiveScience. Here's what you should know about America's newest pest menace:

Where did these crazy ants come from?
Populations of the Rasberry crazy ant (Nylanderia fulva) originally started popping up in Houston back in 2002. Since then they've spread to all the states bordering the Gulf Coast. According to LiveScience's Main, the ants' "crazy" moniker was derived from their "quick, seemingly random movements." While the bugs do indeed sting, crazy ants' bites are less painful than those of fire ants. But that's not even the main problem...


So what is?
Crazy ants, for reasons that are still unexplained, have a mysterious attraction to electrical equipment. They'll swarm a circuit and die of electrocution, giving off a chemical that, strangely, attracts more ants. The newly charred bodies pile up, causing the electronics to fizzle out shortly thereafter — a big problem for places like airports.



Back in 2008, Scott Solomon at Slate noted that "some ant species are capable of detecting electromagnetic fields and may even use Earth's magnetic field as a directional cue." Crazy ants' unmitigated attraction to electronics may be an evolutionary side effect. (See them in action below.)

Are the ants also a problem for places other than airports?

Yep. Crazy ants "go everywhere," says Edward LeBrun, a researcher at the University of Texas in Austin who led the study — into your home, walls, underneath flower pots... anywhere.

LeBrun and his team, publishing their findings in the journal Biological Invasions, found that wherever populations of crazy ants appeared, fire ant nests dwindled, unable to compete with the sheer numbers of crazy ants.

How'd they get here in the first place?

The ants are believed to have come to the U.S. through the Port of New Orleans. The Los Angeles Times notes it's a familiar pattern: That's "how the Argentine ant got here in 1891; the black fire ant was first found near the port of Mobile, Ala., in 1918, and in the 1930s, the well-known and despised red fire ant showed up, pushing out the black fire and Argentine ants."

How do you get rid of them?

The stubborn ants themselves have no natural predators, which enables their colonies to balloon to 100 times the size of other local ant populations. Crazy ants also don't eat the normal pest control poisons used on fire ants, which means you'll have to call an exterminator to hopefully keep them in check.

"There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom," LeBrun tells The Los Angeles Times. "You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It's very expensive."
Click to expand...
 
R

RobotNinjaHornets

Banned
Aaah. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Also this -

Crazy ants, for reasons that are still unexplained, have a mysterious attraction to electrical equipment. They'll swarm a circuit and die of electrocution, giving off a chemical that, strangely, attracts more ants.
Click to expand...

Is fucking hilarious
 
K

Kinyou

Member
Crazy ants, for reasons that are still unexplained, have a mysterious attraction to electrical equipment. They'll swarm a circuit and die of electrocution, giving off a chemical that, strangely, attracts more ants. The newly charred bodies pile up, causing the electronics to fizzle out shortly thereafter — a big problem for places like airports.
Click to expand...
As if they'd want to destroy our technology...
 
E

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Meanwhile, the city of Toronto will spray itself with insecticides from helicopters to fight off a month invasion.

The city says there is no risk to human health, but those who wish to not be exposed to the insecticides are recommended to stay indoor and cover up their patios, plants, or gardens, with plastic sheets.

Welcome to the 21st century!

Kinyou said:
As if they'd want to destroy our technology...
Click to expand...

I guess they do so because it's considered a threat to their presence. The ones that killed themselves doing this probably indirectly ended up helping their colonies make humans move away from those locations, enabling them to grow their colonies.
 
A

Az987

all good things
Soooo if they're attracted to electrical equipment why don't we just make a really big bug zapper?
 
K

Kinyou

Member
Ether_Snake said:
I guess they do so because it's considered a threat to their presence. The ones that killed themselves doing this probably indirectly ended up helping their colonies make humans move away from those locations, enabling them to grow their colonies.
Click to expand...
But what if they do it because mother nature is angry? Dude, it would be like Princess Monokoke, just in small.
 
P

Pachinko

Member
Am I the only one who read that article and figured out this is an easy problem to fix ? These ants like electricity and magnetic fields so why not make a trap that sends out a mild EM field to attract them ? Make this device small and battery operated , capable of holding a few thousand ants before it breaks down and then set a bunch of them up nearby crazy ant colonies.

Sounds like an astoundingly easy problem to fix.
 
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