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

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]

Sounds like they eat mostly bugs, grains, and small animals.

For natural pest control may I suggest house centipedes? Those fast, long-legged, grey-brown guys with the racing stripes. They are non-aggressive and typically incapable of stinging humans until they get quite large (they can live for almost a decade), they carry no known human diseases or parasites, and are voracious hunters whose favorite prey include termites, silverfish, bedbugs, and young cockroachs. And unlike ants they're completely uninterested in your food.

Re:What do these things eat?

[Immerman]

Hell yes I have (well stung technically, centipedes don't bite). Nasty little bastards. But house cenitpedes are to "normal" centipedes what daddy longlegs are to spiders. As a general rule they can't penetrate human skin to deliver their venom, and they're non-aggressive - as long as you're gentle you can even pick them up and play with them without them trying to attack you.

Re:What do these things eat?

[Immerman]

Aww come on, as bugs go it's almost cute. Like the love child of a spider and caterpillar.

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.

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. (-_-)

Evolution...

[houbou]

Even the ants want to travel the electronic highway.. :)

Here's a solution

[houbou]

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

Re:Air-Condition Compressors

[Frosty Piss]

Kinda pisses people off that nothing is actually broken but the service bill is tendered, just the same.

There is a bill because there was "service". If the homeowner wants to hassle with tracking down the issue and clean out the dead ants, they can.

Re:Controlling infestations

[Anonymous Coward]

A bucket full of ants and you suggest simple 'disposal'. My god man, you have *a bucket full of ants*! The mind reels at the possibilities!

Re:Depends on the electronics

[Mitchell314]

Or just file a bug report online.

Re:Controlling infestations

[Donald R. Weimann]

Find the ant mounds and sprinkle some cornmeal around them. They will take the cornmeal into the nest and all the ants, including the queen, will eat it. They can eat it but they cannot digest it so they will all die. If enough people would do this it could eliminate the ant problem. It has worked very well on all of the fire ant mounds that I have doctored in this way.

Good idea!

[SeaFox]

"...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.

What kind of survival mechanism is that? "Oh! There's danger over there. Let's all go check it out..."

Re:Good idea!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"...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.

What kind of survival mechanism is that? "Oh! There's danger over there. Let's all go check it out..."

Given that(among the ants that don't have even cooler mechanisms, like specialized suicide soldiers who blow themselves up to shower the enemy with toxins) "swarm the enemy and keep biting and stinging without regards for casualties until nothing that isn't us is still moving" is considered a valid strategy, the chemical signalling actually makes sense: If an ant from another colony, or a predatory insect/arachnid, attacks a single ant, the ant's body automatically releases the alarm pheremone and the attacker gets zerg rushed.

It's just that, against implacable electronics that are totally indifferent to anything except being insulated by the uncounted bodies of the slain, this tactic doesn't work very well(see also: mammals that 'freeze' to avoid predators; but discover that cars aren't visual hunters; but they do kill anything that gets in their way)...

Re:Good idea!

[fazookus]

Hold my beer and watch this! Those would be your red neck ants.

Electric bug zapper

[flyingfsck]

It sounds like all one needs is a large electric bug zapper since they are already attracted to it.

You had me at..

[buddyglass]

You had me at "They don't sting like fire ants do...".