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USA - 'Crazy ants' invade Southern states, altering ecosystem

Pathfinder

Pathfinder

Editor, Senior Moderator
?Hairy crazy ants? invade Louisiana

Species identified in Sulphur, La., in June

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");</SCRIPT>By Meredith Will
<!--By Meredith Will
-->Contributing Writer
Published: Monday, October 3, 2011
Updated: Monday, October 3, 2011 01:10


Hairy, erratically moving ants native to South America and the Caribbean have been in the United States since the 1950s, but now the pests are moving into Louisiana.

A pest control agency in Sulphur sent a sample of the "hairy crazy ants" to the Louisiana State Arthropod Museum, where curator Victoria Bayless identified the species for the first time in Louisiana.
...
Bayless said the main difference between this species and other ant species is the size of the colonies. A single colony can contain millions of the pests because there are multiple queens, or head ants, that work together.

She said hairy crazy ants reproduce rapidly and do not respond to normal pest control methods.
...
Hairy crazy ants have also been reported in walls of houses, she said.
They can cause electrical shortages as they accumulate in large numbers.
Biology sophomore Ina Tillison said she would "lose her mind" if she found hairy crazy ants in her house.
...
Bayless said the hairy crazy ants bite, and they cause similar allergic reactions to other ant bites.

Full text:
http://www.lsureveille.com/news/hairy-crazy-ants-invade-louisiana-1.2643899
 
Re: ?Hairy crazy ants? identified for the first time in Louisiana

Re: ?Hairy crazy ants? identified for the first time in Louisiana

Millions of Hairy, Crazy Ants Invading the US​

Published October 03, 2011
Associated Press

Excerpt:

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. 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.

Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/03/invasion-hairy-crazy-ants/#ixzz1ZkzYqkya
 
Last edited:
Re: ?Hairy crazy ants? identified for the first time in Louisiana

Re: ?Hairy crazy ants? identified for the first time in Louisiana

Rasberry crazy ant


Nylanderia fulva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant

Louisiana -

'Crazy Ants' invade Kenner

wwltv.com
Posted on August 30, 2013 at 6:21 PM
Updated Friday, Aug 30 at 6:40 PM
Paul Murphy / Eyewitness News

KENNER, La. - There is something very creepy now crawling through the Lincoln Manor Subdivision in Kenner.

They are pouring out of holes in the ground, scattering across backyard fences and getting into everything while scavenging for food.

It's the invasion of the raspberry crazy ants.
...
Insect Ecology Professor Dr. Jerry Howard at the University of New Orleans says crazy ants arrived in the country from South America a few years ago and are now making their way across the southern U.S.

They get the name crazy ant because of the way they move," said Howard. "They move in a really jerky fashion. They don't follow trails in a progression like most ants seem to."
...
Neighbors say the crazy ants seem to have driven away their much larger and more aggressive cousins, the red fire ants.
...
"They're not competing directly with the fire ants in the sense that they're not fighting the fire ants. What they're doing is they're foraging so effectively and scavenging so much of the food, that the fire ants can't persist."
...

Full text:
http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Crazy-Ants-Invade-Kenner-221861461.html
 
Re: ?Hairy crazy ants? identified for the first time in Louisiana

Re: ?Hairy crazy ants? identified for the first time in Louisiana

Neighbors say the crazy ants seem to have driven away their much larger and more aggressive cousins, the red fire ants.
Click to expand...

Maybe that will be a blessing.
 
Re: USA - 'Crazy ants' invade Southern states, altering ecosystem

'Crazy ants' invade Southern states, altering ecosystem

Lindsay Friedman, USA TODAY 11:59 a.m. EDT July 2, 2013
...
They've spread to 24 counties in Texas, 20 in Florida and a few in Mississippi and Louisiana, according to LeBrun's study, published in the journal Biological Invasions. They cause about $146.5 million in electrical damage a year because millions of ants are electrocuted in small circuits or wires, where they seek warmth, according to a Texas A&M University study published in April.
...
LeBrun's study says the ants aren't just a costly nuisance because they're displacing other aggressive species, such as fire ants ? they're throwing the whole Southern ecosystem out of whack.

"It's not a good trade," says Robert Puckett, associate research scientist at Texas A&M University, who has also examined the species in separate studies. "Some people think they'd prefer to deal with crazy ants. But once they invade, people want their fire ants back."

Though crazy ants don't have a nasty stinger like fire ants, they do bite. Crazy ant mounds are also decentralized and can create larger super colonies. To make matters worse, the insect's kryptonite has yet to be discovered ? typical insecticides have no effect.

In Colombia, they have replaced all other ant species, killing small animals by asphyxiation. They've attacked the eyes, noses and hooves of larger animals such as cattle, and dried out entire grasslands.

LeBrun says the invasion is "very concerning" because scientists from both South and North America know little about the ant.
...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2013/06/30/crazy-ants-south/2446941/
 
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