Electronics-Loving 'Crazy Ants' Invading Southern US

From an article at the Houston Chronicle (not The Onion) comes a report of concern to anyone in a warm climate with, well, electronics. From the article: "According to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, invasive 'crazy ants' are slowly displacing fire ants in the southeastern United States. These 'Tawny Crazy Ants' have a peculiar predilection toward electronics as well. 'They nest in electronics and create short circuits, as they create a contact bridge between two points when they get electrocuted they release an alarm pheromone,' says UT research assistant Edward LeBrun. 'The other ants are attracted to the chemicals that other ants give off,' he adds. At this point, more ants arrive and create a larger nest." The L.A. Times also has a report, which says "Thus far, the crazy ants are not falling for the traditional poisons used to eliminate fire ant mounds. And when local mounds are destroyed manually, they are quickly regenerated. 'They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,' LeBrun said. 'There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It's very expensive.'"

Comments

Controlling infestations

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem really relies on the chemical trail ants leave to alert others where to go. If you have an ant problem you need to not only kill the ones present but you need to eliminate the trails they leave. Indoors bleaching the hell out of the surfaces they walk across regularly helps a lot. Out doors you really are screwed unless you want to start digging stuff up.

Re:Controlling infestations

[Immerman]

Or as an alternative - when you find an "ant highway" entering your home crush some of them and smear them around the area where they are entering. It may not work for all species, but for most it seems to effectively communicate that this is not a healthy place to be in their native "language". I've never used pesticides of any sort, and rarely have more than a couple brief (under 48 hour) "invasions" per year. Then again I also allow spiders, house centipedes, and other human-harmless predators to live unmolested in my home as long as long as they keep a low profile (my cat does most of the enforcing on that front), so it probably doesn't have nearly the "land of milk and honey" appeal of many modern homes to begin with.

Probably wouldn't work for crazy ants though, sounds like their death phermones actively attract more ants, though perhaps it's electrocution specifically that has that effect.

Re:Controlling infestations

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if they are picky eaters, just use a mixture of boric acid and sugar, sometimes mixed with water. A puddle sometimes drowns some of the ants so they don't report it back, but a paper towel soaked in it works. The nice thing is boric acid has an lethal dosage for mammals larger than that of table salt, so it is reasonably safe around pets and humans in that quantity, but it is pretty destructive to ants. Straight powder dumped across entrances and trails works really well as deterrent too.

What do these things eat?

[anubi]

That is my first concern. If they eat wood, its bad news... really bad news. If they eat other bugs, I am gonna leave them alone.

If they like termites, where can I get some?

Re:What do these things eat?

[Immerman]

Heh heh.

In seriousness though, why would you object to a house centipede infestation? They're harmless and provide a valuable service. If you have enough of them to really be considered an infestation then that's practically a guarantee that you have a serious infestation of something far more objectionable that they're chowing down on. When that infestation is gone the vast majority of centipedes will go looking for greener pastures. It's like a farmer complaining about the cat infestation in his grain silo.

Re:What do these things eat?

[Immerman]

Congratulations, sounds like your cockroach, termite, or other infestation won't last long (or your neighbor's infestation is being held in check).

I don't actually know all that much about centipedes in general, I've just become enamored of house centipedes, especially after spending a couple years in Denver where bedbugs are making a serious comeback (seriously annoying little critters - immune to cleanliness, bait, and just about any poison short of DDT.) I agree on the second one - in fact it looked like it already had most of it's legs ripped off. As for the first, maybe it just got unlucky? It appeared to be stuck on it's back, probably the cameraman dropped it into an existing swarm. And really most centipedes aren't actually all that fast, just look at the size and shape of the legs - house centipedes are built to RUN, whereas most species are more like heavily armored caterpillar tanks.

ants and electricity

[Black Parrot]

I've long noticed that ants seem to have a predilection for electricity. They crawl all over electrical conduits, enter homes at electrical outlets, etc.

Re:ants and electricity

[girlintraining]

I've long noticed that ants seem to have a predilection for electricity. They crawl all over electrical conduits, enter homes at electrical outlets, etc.

It's because they can sense electromagnetic fields, which all electronics give off. Of course, the solution for dealing with these new ants is simple, but counterintuitive -- spray everything with this 'alarm' pheremone. If ants navigate by scent trail, and that's how they rebuild their nests, and it's too challenging to remove the scent trails... then you are left with only one option:

Blind the little bastards by coating everything in it. It's my understanding that, without those trails, they'll be helpless to organize to find food, each other, or even the way home. Everything depends on those trails... so if you overload their sense organs and blind them, they'll perish. After they're dead, the pheremones sprayed will slowly dissipate, but importantly... the trails they've laid down will dissipate faster, so the area is then chemically neutral again.

It is, quite literally, chemical warfare. (-_-)

Here's a solution

[houbou]

Use those old Cisco routers from 10 yrs ago... as ant baits! :)

Bad ant strategy?

[venicebeach]

Seems like having a predilection for something that kills you is not an instinct that should be selected for. If they are electrocuted by the electronics shouldn't this problem take care of itself sooner or later?

It would seem to have a self correcting solution..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just put suitable simulated circuits near the ants.

When a short circuit appears, over voltage the hell out of the bus bar (20KV should do) and vaporize the short.

Now that the circuit is restored, resume waiting for another.

You could even be cute and have a delay before applying the over voltage so that the pheromones released have time to sucker a lot more in.

Hey - this counts as patent prior art - this ones mine.