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Crazy ants invading US Gulf coast region

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G

Gaborn

Member
1003-science-crazyhairyants_full_380.jpg


caption said:
In this 2009 photo provided by Mississippi State Entomological Museum, a queen Nylanderia pubens (ant) specimen is seen in Starkville, Miss. Hairy crazy ants are on the move in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Joe MacGown/Mississippi State Entomological Museum/AP
Click to expand...

NEW ORLEANS It sounds like a horror movie: Biting ants invade by the millions. A camper's metal walls bulge from the pressure of ants nesting behind them. A circle of poison stops them for only a day, and then a fresh horde shows up, bringing babies. Stand in the yard, and in seconds ants cover your shoes.

It's an extreme example of what can happen when the ants — which also can disable huge industrial plants — go unchecked. Controlling them can cost thousands of dollars. But the story is real, told by someone who's been studying ants for a decade.

"Months later, I could close my eyes and see them moving," said Joe MacGown, who curates the ant, mosquito and scarab collections at the Mississippi State Entomological Museum at Mississippi State University.

He's been back to check on the hairy crazy ants. They're still around. The occupant isn't.

The flea-sized critters are called crazy because each forager scrambles randomly at a speed that your average picnic ant, marching one by one, reaches only in video fast-forward. They're called hairy because of fuzz that, to the naked eye, makes their abdomens look less glossy than those of their slower, bigger cousins.

And they're on the move in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. In Texas, they've invaded homes and industrial complexes, urban areas and rural areas.[/B] They travel in cargo containers, hay bales, potted plants, motorcycles and moving vans. They overwhelm beehives — one Texas beekeeper was losing 100 a year in 2009. They short out industrial equipment.

If one gets electrocuted, its death releases a chemical cue to attack a threat to the colony, said Roger Gold, an entomology professor at Texas A&M.

"The other ants rush in. Before long, you have a ball of ants," he said.

A computer system controlling pipeline valves shorted out twice in about 35 days, but monthly treatments there now keep the bugs at bay, said exterminator Tom Rasberry, who found the first Texas specimens of the species in the Houston area in 2002.

"We're kind of going for overkill on that particular site because so much is at stake," he said. "If that shuts down, they could literally shut down an entire chemical plant that costs millions of dollars."

And, compared to other ants, these need overkill. For instance, Gold said, if 100,000 are killed by pesticides, millions more will follow.

"I did a test site with a product early on and applied the product to a half-acre ... In 30 days I had two inches of dead ants covering the entire half-acre," Rasberry said. "It looked like the top of the dead ants was just total movement from all the live ants on top of the dead ants."

But the Mississippi story is an exception, Rasberry said. Control is expensive, ranging from $275 to thousands of dollars a year for the 1,000 homes he's treated in the past month. Still, he's never seen the ants force someone out of their home, he said.

The ants don't dig out anthills and prefer to nest in sheltered, moist spots. In MacGown's extreme example in Waveland, Miss., the house was out in woods with many fallen trees and piles of debris. They will eat just about anything — plant or animal.

The ants are probably native to South America, MacGown said. But they were recorded in the Caribbean by the late 19th century, said Jeff Keularts, an extension associate professor at the University of the Virgin Islands. That's how they got the nickname "Caribbean crazy ants." They've also become known as Rasberry crazy ants, after the exterminator.

Now they're making their way through parts of the Southeast. Florida had the ants in about five counties in 2000 but today is up to 20, MacGown said. Nine years after first being spotted in Texas, that state now has them in 18 counties. So far, they have been found in two counties in Mississippi and at least one Louisiana parish.

Texas has temporarily approved two chemicals in its effort to control the ants, and other states are looking at ways to curb their spread.

Controlling them can be tricky. Rasberry said he's worked jobs where other exterminators had already tried and failed. Gold said some infestations have been traced to hay bales hauled from one place to another for livestock left without grass by the drought that has plagued Texas.

MacGown said he hopes their numbers are curbed in Louisiana and Mississippi before it's too late.

The hairy crazy ants do wipe out one pest — fire ants — but that's cold comfort.

"I prefer fire ants to these," MacGown said. "I can avoid a fire ant colony."
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Story Here

Holy SHIT that sounds insane.
 
H

How About No

Member
If one gets electrocuted, its death releases a chemical cue to attack a threat to the colony, said Roger Gold, an entomology professor at Texas A&M.

"The other ants rush in. Before long, you have a ball of ants," he said.

...

And, compared to other ants, these need overkill. For instance, Gold said, if 100,000 are killed by pesticides, millions more will follow.
Click to expand...

Hory shiieet

simpsons-kent-brochman-hail-ants-welcome-overlords.jpg
 
abstract alien

abstract alien

Member
Satchwar said:
This would be a good time for spiders to show just how much they love humans. Save us!
Click to expand...
They would probably sacrifice the babies by throwing them onto the spider web and crawling over them so they wouldn't get caught.
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
I don't think their in my county yet, but yeah that sounds insane. And it's why "invading animals/plants" to ecosystems needs to be really checked and balanced. There's this type of grass called wattle or something, African in origin that was brought to Hawaii and sucks all the moisture out of the ground and invades in non wattle areas. Dig them out and you'll get cuts and the like and if you cut the damn things, they'll bleed and grow even more horrible. Even using chemicals on them doesn't help to well. IIRC they've also invaded Australia.
 
Ploid 3.0

Ploid 3.0

Member
I live near the MS river, and kinda close to the gulf in Mississippi. I have regular pest control visits and if I get them storming my way I hope to be able to stop them.
 
M

Master Thespian

Member
TheSeks said:
I don't think their in my county yet, but yeah that sounds insane. And it's why "invading animals/plants" to ecosystems needs to be really checked and balanced. There's this type of grass called wattle or something, African in origin that was brought to Hawaii and sucks all the moisture out of the ground and invades in non wattle areas. Dig them out and you'll get cuts and the like and if you cut the damn things, they'll bleed and grow even more horrible. Even using chemicals on them doesn't help to well. IIRC they've also invaded Australia.
Click to expand...
Something African goes uninvited into to other countries and sucks up the natural resources? Bizarro world.
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Master Thespian said:
Something African goes uninvited into to other countries and sucks up the natural resources? Bizarro world.
Click to expand...

I was wrong. It isn't a grass, it's a type of tree. But you can't exactly kill is easily. In any case, wattle just proves that invasive species needs to be checked before anything is shipped into countries. It's too bad it's too much effort and cost to where this is possible because these invasive species fuck with the ecosystem in the invaded areas.
 
M

Myansie

Member
TheSeks said:
I don't think their in my county yet, but yeah that sounds insane. And it's why "invading animals/plants" to ecosystems needs to be really checked and balanced. There's this type of grass called wattle or something, African in origin that was brought to Hawaii and sucks all the moisture out of the ground and invades in non wattle areas. Dig them out and you'll get cuts and the like and if you cut the damn things, they'll bleed and grow even more horrible. Even using chemicals on them doesn't help to well. IIRC they've also invaded Australia.
Click to expand...

Lantana is the plant your thinking of. Wattle is an Australian native and has really pretty yellow flowers.

Lantana has really pretty flowers too, but like you described the rest of it is a nightmare.

Edit: Ok maybe you are talking about wattle trees, I just read your link. I didn't know wattle had been introduced to foreign countries as well, here it's actually really pretty and people plant it in their gardens.
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Myansie said:
Edit: Ok maybe you are talking about wattle trees, I just read your link. I didn't know wattle had been introduced to foreign countries as well, here it's actually really pretty and people plant it in their gardens.
Click to expand...

I know someone that lives in HI and is trying to get it out of their yard. But they can't because it's invaded nearly everywhere in HI. And as a non-HI plant it's terrible for the ground and surrounding areas.
 
L

LOCK

Member
As a southerner, this scares the shit out of me.

Not that I'm scared of ants or insects in general, only I'm scared of millions of these hairy bastards showing up because I casually killed a few of its buddies who so happened to find their way into my dwelling. Invasive bastards.
 
M

Myansie

Member
TheSeks said:
I know someone that lives in HI and is trying to get it out of their yard. But they can't because it's invaded nearly everywhere in HI. And as a non-HI plant it's terrible for the ground and surrounding areas.
Click to expand...

What colour are the flowers? Your description sounds way more like lantana, it's like a bramble bush with tiny thorns and small flowers. The flowers can be purple, red, yellow, maybe even more colours. Plus it's African. Where as Wattle is a proper tree, I don't remember it ever having thorns, but your Wiki link says it's the most invasive species in the world, so maybe it is that.

I'm living in Qld at the moment and we have a not so great invader known as the cane toad...

32.jpg


I remember back when I was in college walking home from a night on the booze and noticing the ground in front of me moving. All of it was shifting as I walked. My first reaction was to blame the booze. Shook myself out of it and realised the ground in front of me was covered in hundreds of cane toads. No where near as large as the guy above, but there were a few as large as two fists.
 
C

cdyhybrid

Member
Myansie said:
What colour are the flowers? Your description sounds way more like lantana, it's like a bramble bush with tiny thorns and small flowers. The flowers can be purple, red, yellow, maybe even more colours. Plus it's African. Where as Wattle is a proper tree, I don't remember it ever having thorns, but your Wiki link says it's the most invasive species in the world, so maybe it is that.

I'm living in Qld at the moment and we have a not so great invader known as the cane toad...

32.jpg


I remember back when I was in college walking home from a night on the booze and noticing the ground in front of me moving. All of it was shifting as I walked. My first reaction was to blame the booze. Shook myself out of it and realised the ground in front of me was covered in hundreds of cane toads. No where near as large as the guy above, but there were a few as large as two fists.
Click to expand...

That is a big ass toad. God damn, Australia.
 
D

Drazgul

Member
Hah, that toad is awesome. Probably make good eatin', too.

Edit: Oh it has poison glands, well probably not then.
 
R

rozay

Banned
First thing I thought of was that US customs video they show on some flights heading into the USA with the ants that appear from food overseas and end up eating the world.

Hope these don't come to california.
 
M

Myansie

Member
CFMOORE! said:
i'd yell in horror at the sight of a fucking frog that huge. i swear, australia is hell on earth.
Click to expand...

I'm patiently waiting for another spider thread so I can post the Sydney Funnel Web. For some reason no one's posted it. It is by far the most terrifying thing I have ever seen. I've seen the common house spider, the huntsman, posted, but their harmless. These things are so bad arse they make tarantulas look like house pets. We used to get the smaller Funnel Web in our pool, my god they looked terrifying. Google image if you dare.
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
*looks at picture*
*reads description of behavior*

...did an ant fuck a bee?
 
i_am_ben

i_am_ben

running_here_and_there
ItAintEasyBeinCheesy said:
We'll send some good Australian spiders over there to help you guys.
Click to expand...

or we could send them some Jack jumper ants to help create the most evil ant in the world.
 
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