Invasion of Invincible Ants

Kryptonomic writes: "It's coming to Australia. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, pain or fear! No. It's not a Godzilla or the Alien. It's an ant that attacks anything in its path is slowly spreading though Queensland, Australia, sparking fears of crop damage and environmental destruction."

Comments

Sounds like the Argentine ant invasion in CA,USA

[PeterM from Berkeley]

California is suffering a similar invasion of the Argentine ant. These guys don't sting, so they're not as bad as the fire ant.

However, they do have some interesting features which is allowing them to wipe out native ants and completely dominate the CA landscape:

1) Many queens per colony. In any ant vs. ant battle, the Argentine ant can usually bring far greater numbers to bear, and tiny as they are, they win.

2) Tolerance. Apparently, only one colony of Argentine ants made it into the USA, in the beginning. All the daughter colonies are so similar genetically one US colony of these ants
doesn't recognize another as an enemy. So every
colony of Argentine ants in the US is the friend of every other colony. Or, you could say that ALL the Argentine ants in the US form a single supercolony.

Fire ants are apparently similar in this respect, so there's a big supercolony of fire ants in the southeast US, and a big supercolony of Argentine ants in the West. Will one or the other supercolony come to dominate North America, or will they eventually form a stable frontier?

Not *that* bad...

[gazuga]

Geez, the article would have you believe that these things are going to take over everything. I've had to deal with fire ants for my entire life (they everywhere here in Texas -- hell, I think there are some running around on my carpet right now).

While they are annoying and impossible to get rid of, nobody should really fear them. The only way they will cause death is after something has been swarmed and stung by *1000's* of them, usually after falling on top of the large mounds they create. It's really more of an annoyance to get stung than anything.

I think it is prudent for Australia to stop them from spreading before it's too late (which all efforts here have shown to be damned near impossible), but really people, there is no reason to panic over the situation (as the article may make you believe.)