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Super Ant Colony in Australia

Posted by michael on from the no-picnics-for-you dept.

JamesD_UK writes "Elissa Suhr of the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University has discovered a 100km long colony of Argentine Ants in Melbourne. With a reduced genetic pool compared to ants native to south America, the Melbourne ants have put aside their differences and formed a super colony. The Argentine Ant poses a threat to native ants who are unable to compete, affecting animals further up the food chain (such as the coast horned lizard in South California). With the average size of an Argentine Ant at 3mm, you could fit 30 million insect overlords along the length of this colony!"

9 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Meanwhile, in Argentina by notfancy · · Score: 4, Informative

    the little buggers are everywhere. They have a penchant for making nests behind tiles and in utility conduits in buildings, with the effect that all Buenos Aires feels like a huge anthill. I have to put bread, flour and sugar inside Ziploc bags to keep them out. Pest control makes them disappear for a month, and then they return.

    The only good thing about the ants is that they keep cokroaches away.

    1. Re:Meanwhile, in Argentina by crotherm · · Score: 2, Informative

      The only good thing about the ants is that they keep cokroaches away.

      And termites... They are here in SoCal as well. My house used to have termites, but since these ants have cleaned out the local ones, I don't see any more termite scat. But I have seen large trails of these ants going into termite damaged wood.

      --
      "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
    2. Re:Meanwhile, in Argentina by bobbozzo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ah... it talks about them attacking drywood termites here

      --
      Nothing to see here; Move along.
  2. eat anything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I live in melbourne, the ants are bad here, not sure if they are from this super colony, but man they eat anything.

    Bread, coffee dregs, fat off the frypan, nothing is safe.

  3. Obligatory DNA Reference by kalidasa · · Score: 3, Informative

    By hitchhiking in international trade, the ants have spread to all Mediterranean ecosystems around the world and had huge impacts in other countries. For example, in California they have displaced native ants, decreased the diversity of other native insects, affected the dispersal of seeds and even decreased lizard numbers.

    So much for "take me to your lizards."

  4. a mere 100km ? How about 6000km ??? by skelley · · Score: 5, Informative

    A species of Argentine ant introduced into Europe about 80 years ago has developed the largest supercolony ever recorded.
    It stretches 6,000 kilometres - from northern Italy, through the south of France to the Atlantic coast of Spain - with billions of related ants occupying millions of nests.

    While ants from rival nests normally fight each other to the death, ants from the supercolony have the ability to recognise each other and co-operate - even if they come from nests at opposite ends of the colony's range.

    The Argentine species (Linepithema humile) probably came into Europe on imported plants, pushing back the 20 or so indigenous species of European ant.

    see here -
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1932509.stm

  5. More sources from my personal Web site... by antdude · · Score: 4, Informative
    From The Ant Farm's The Reading Room:
    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  6. Re:It's no wonder they're so tough by I(rispee_I(reme · · Score: 1, Informative

    Ants, being insects, have 6 legs (or arms, if it floats your boat. Only arachnids, such as spiders, have 8 legs. I found your comment funny but wanted to avoid the propagation of false information.

  7. It just means they're inbred by wadiwood · · Score: 2, Informative

    As best I could tell from information is that the argentine ants are very inbred so they don't fight other argentine ants because they recognise each other's chemical signals that mean they are from the same parent colony.

    Hence one article that says that the argentine ants from the mediterranean sea to the English Channel are all the same colony. Inbred.

    With pictures
    http://www.boomerangei.com.au/ants.htm#A rgentine%2 0Ant
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureit ems/an ts.htm
    http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/biosecurit y/argent ineants.asp?

    No pictures
    http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1 174385.htm

    ant management
    http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=faq &id=Ant%20co ntrol

    --

    -- it must be true, it's on the internet.