A group of tawny crazy (raspberry) ants at the Sam Houston State University's Institute for the Study of Invasive Species Wednesday, May 1, 2013, in Huntsville. (Photo by James Nielsen/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
Invasive, hairy ants are spreading across the Southeast U.S., creating "super colonies" with millions of critters and costing millions of dollars in damages along the way.
Joe MacGown, an ant taxonomist with the Mississippi Entomological Museum, sat down with The Associated Press to warn about the damage these invasive creatures can cause and what people should watch for.
What are tawny (raspberry) crazy ants?
The backstory:
Tawny, crazy ants are a small, reddish brown, very hairy ant originally from South America, MacGown said. They’ve been in the U.S. for nearly 100 years, but the populations "just blew up" about 20-25 years ago.
"And when I say blew up, they just overwhelmed acreage with millions and millions of ants," he said. "They aggregate in huge super colonies, just incredible numbers."
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Why are tawny crazy ants problematic?
Why you should care:
Tawny crazy ants bite, but they don’t sting and don’t carry venom. What they can do is get into homes, shorting out electrical boxes and wreaking havoc through sheer volume, MacGown said. Once established in an area, they are nearly impossible to eradicate.
"They are getting transported by human means," MacGown explained. "They might be in a potted plant. They could be in bales of hay. They could be in firewood. But these ants are incredible. You could park a motorcycle or a car where they're really abundant overnight, and they would climb into that vehicle the next day.
"You could transport them that easily," he continued. "I'm surprised they haven't spread more."
MacGown said there are several challenges when it comes to tawny crazy ants.
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"First of all, they are not good for our ecosystems. When you go to places where they're abundant, they're up and down trees on the ground. So they are competing with a lot of organisms, but they also cause problems for humans. They're known to be attracted to electrical equipment, and they really go in and sort it out.
"They may short out some equipment and then others, they release alarm pheromones and it recruits other ants," MacGown continued. "And you have all these things come in. So it's not uncommon for them to short out breaker boxes and anything else you can think of. Huge businesses in other states, in Houston, have been shut down temporarily. These have cost millions, many millions of dollars in damage."
How many tawny crazy ants are there in the US?
MacGown said calculating the numbers of tawny crazy ants in the U.S. may be an impossible feat, as "whole areas of land can be completely covered."
"I've driven to a site one time that was a gravel road, and I was with a fellow researcher, and we looked out and the road seemed to be visually vibrating, and it was the ants crawling around," he said.
"I had my foot down in a pile of millions of dead ants, but they're still coming in," he added. They’re amazing. There's no way to exaggerate the abundance of these when a population is in your area."
MacGown said it’s not exactly clear why these ants are exploding in numbers – and spreading further throughout the South – but he believes it’s connected to the more recent changes in weather patterns.
"It's really interesting. They come in and they sit around for many years and they blow up, but they seem like they settle down … But just suddenly, after 15 years, we're seeing in the southern states that they're moving."
How do you identify tawny crazy ants?
MacGown said unless you’re an expert – or you have a microscope – tawny crazy ants can be hard to identify.
"For the average person we can tell them by their numbers," he said. "The average person won't have a microscope. They're going to see a reddish color in huge numbers."
Where are tawny crazy ants found?
Local perspective:
MacGown said tawny crazy ants are found in the "southern third of Texas," and throughout southern Louisiana, southern and coastal Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle.
"But they're spreading," MacGown said. "Just recently, this past couple of years, this year, we've noticed a big change in the distributions."
How do you get rid of tawny crazy ants?
What you can do:
Tawny crazy ants can be killed with a pesticide, but it’s hard because there are so many. The first thing you should do is find a local extension agent or agricultural service in your area to confirm they’re tawny crazy ants.
Then, contact a professional pest control operator.
"You cannot deal with these ants on your own," MacGown warned. "It's impossible. You'll spend money. You'll be involved with chemicals you shouldn't use.
"And if you have them and you say you're in a neighborhood, if you get rid of yours and they don't get rid of theirs over there … everybody has to work together. This is a neighborhood struggle."
The Source: This report includes information from The Associated Press.