What's a fire ant?

[KarenInMA]

[crispini]

1. Ant that bites, HARD.

Viz:

[Modem Butterfly]

2. It's a red ant that is hard to kill and likes to bite people and animals

Its bite stings like crazy. It also eats electronic wiring. It's a nasty little bugger...

[Richardo]

3. There's no such thing as *a* fire ant.

They only come in overwhelming force.

[kick-ass-bob]

8. like this:

[Richardo]

12. Yeah. Like that.

:scared:

[ClintonTyree]

27. I've seen them like that, they build rafts out of themselves.....

when I lived in Florida we'd get tremendous gully washers in the summertime, if it flooded their nests they form an ant raft and go where the current took them until they hit dry land. The little buggers can survive 14 hours underwater. I used to dust the hills with some stuff, I forgot what it's called now. It gave me great pleasure to watch the little bastards die, but I knew they'd just pop up somewhere else. If you don't get the queen(s), you're screwed. Resilient little shits, they are.

[Shell Beau]

50. Yikes!

[leftofthedial]

4. It's like a piss ant

except about 40 times as big, red, with much larger mandibles that deliver a very painful burning chemical into its bite

[achtung_circus]

5. Primer here:

<http://fireant.tamu.edu/>

[Not_Giving_Up]

6. A vicious ant

The bites form pus filled heads that don't want anything to touch them. Fire ants are everywhere in Texas. I know, I live here.

[Corgigal]

7. they are little assholes that live in my yard

I treat the mount over and over, a few of them give me the finger move 10 feet and open a hotel.

Worst then fleas, in my opinion.

[crispini]

13. Orange oil.

Check out The Dirt Doctor (dirtdoctor.com, I think) for lots of organic treatments for fire ants.

I live in Texas and I have not had fire ants in my yard for four years. 100% organic garden.

[Corgigal]

16. thanks

I will.

[merh]

37. Thanks for the link

:hi:

[ret5hd]

go to a farm store or feed store...

and buy some "beneficial nematodes". Apply as directed and your problem will be gone in a few weeks. probably cost you about $20 for a years supply.

they are microscopic worms that infect ground-dwelling insects like ants, grubs, most of the ittle nasties that infest your garden, etc. but, they leave most of the beneficial insects alone, like ladybugs, praying mantis, etc.

[loudsue]

34. Do nematodes work on FIRE ants, too?

Or do they just work on the little pissy ones?

:kick::kick::kick:

[ret5hd]

35. yes they do...and very well (nt)

[China_cat]

46. The ones that work on fleas

also work on fire ants. That was a welcome side effect when we used them.

[loudsue]

52. Fleas, too? That's GREAT news! How 'bout CHIGGERS?

Chiggers are the devil. :evilgrin: I don't know why God even invented those little boogers. What was He thinking????

:kick:

[China_cat]

55. SHE wanted something to get under the skin of men

in order to remind them that women are NOT the most irritating things on the planet.

[steve2470]

20. LOL good one nt

[pitohui]

9. small black biting ants common in southwest and gulf coast

they build huge mounds in the dirt

try to avoid stepping in them

since they're everywhere & you will step on them at some point if you're outdoors enough, it is useful to know that immediate application of white vinegar applied to the bites will react w. the formic acid in the ant bite and save you from developing a raised, red, itchy bite mark

[jean]

14. Yaaay! Something to fight them with - White Vinegar!

[Shell Beau]

48. They actually have a red tint to them.

[DrDan]

10. while living in Ethiopia several years back, I had these things

invade my car.

Once I was moving, they crawled up my leg and started their feast.

It was memorable.

[mourningdove92]

11. they are practically indestructible critters that are a royal

pain in the &*$#.

I believe they are Gods punishment to Texas for GWB. As a Texan, I wish he would move somewhere else and take his fire ants with him.

[kick-ass-bob]

32. This is where they have spread in the US:

[graywarrior]

15. They're the Hell's Angels of the ant world

They're mean little bastids.

[alphafemale]

Just to clarify. The bite is just the beginning. They also sting.

Nasty fuckers.

[Walt Starr]

17. Non-native species of ant with a destructive sting

[Armstead]

18. Sometimes cold weathr is a blessing in Massachusetts

I hate winter. But at least it keeps the number of pests down somewhat.

[tx_dem41]

19. Oh, you silly, silly Yankee..... n/t

:)

Just kidding. I didn't know what a black fly was until I visited Maine.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. I'd rather have the black flies! *l*

[trekbiker]

21. fire ants use a stinger like a bee. very painful

[CottonBear]

23. An awful creature that torments humans and animal alike.

They can kill baby birds and reptiles. Last week, they bit my filly all over her nose which she then rubbed raw. :cry: Once, they got on my candy bar (which I had set down on a bale of hay in the barn) then bit me on the lips when I ate the rest of the candy! Ouch! I ate a good number of them in the process of removing them from my face (they don't taste bad, actually). :(

They are a scourge upon the beautiful state that is Georgia.

[Ripley]

29. Unfortunately they kill people too.

I remember reading an article a couple of years ago about a resident in a nursing home just over the border in Mississippi, who died because they had come in through the open window. Her body had like a million bites.

I thought I'd die from like two. Oh yeah, it's not just a bite either....they latch on with their teeth, then rotate in a circle with their but stinger stabbing you until you get it off.

They released some wasps here (alabama) a year or so ago to try to kill them - the wasp is their predator from their home in South America. I haven't seen as many this year, but they're still around.

[CottonBear]

38. I read about those poor old people. How awful.

I would love to get some of those wasps here. We use fly predator wasps at the horse farm to control the fly population. Get this: we had to protect the wasp pupae from the fire ants! The damned ants crawled into the little bucket with the pupae and ate them within 30 minutes of setting them out near the manure pile! We had to put the pupae on a plastic chair which had its legs in buckets of water to keep the ants at bay. :(

[Ripley]

41. I'll have to check into the wasp thing...

Because I really think the daily tropical downpours we're having this summer is more likely the reason I don't see so many mounds.

[RubyDuby in GA]

43. Growing up, there was a girl who lived across the street from my family

She and my brother were the same age and played together all the time. I think it was when they were either 6 or 7 that she stepped in a fire ant mound and was bitten repeatedly. She suffered partial paralysis on one side of her body and had slurred speech. The doctors in the emergency room said she had been bitten several hundred times.

You don't mess around with fire ants. They can kill and they can cause serious damage to the body.

[tocqueville]

24. it's a neocon ant

"Fire ants are scavenger-predators that prefer oily or fatty meats and seeds. The menu includes insects, vertebrate carrion and fruits. The ants also harvest seeds and obtain nectar from a variety of plants, including many species of cactus. One early naturalist wrote how "not even clothes are immune from these ant rogues these insect villains walnuts, almonds, tomatoes, watermelons, and other fruits and vegetables."

Fire ants are an aggressive species and when a good food source is found, fire ant workers will displace other ant species. They generally accomplish this through a process known as "gaster wagging" or "flagging," where a worker will produce an aerosolized drop of venom on her hind end and disperse the poison toward or onto the enemy."


http://www.desertusa.com/mag01/aug/papr/ants.html

[scarface2004]

25. one bite

will burn for hours, then itch, then leave a mark for days. they are vicious karl rove like!!

[tex-wyo-dem]

26. I beileve they are originally from South America...

but were transplanted into the southwest several decades ago. Have been the main reason for the Texas Horney Toad's declining numbers.

[K-W]

28. I blame Hugo Chavez EOM

[steve2470]

30. Trust me, once one of those suckers bites you, you don't believe in the

sacredness of biodiversity anymore. :evilgrin:

[HughBeaumont]

31. The subject of a kick-ass Mastodon song

and an evil insect.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

33. Good site on prevention/ treatment of fire-ant bites

http://www.geo-outdoors.info/fire_ants.htm

bring listerine!

[gkhouston]

36. the mounds are often raised a bit higher than a common ant mound

and if you're in a suburban or urban area, don't be surprised if there's one near a sidewalk or curb. And boy, can those fuckers swim. Gotta be careful after a heavy rain when there's standing water pooling everywhere.

You don't want any part of them.

[CottonBear]

40. They bit me on the hand last week while I was cleaning a water trough.

They were swimming around in the water just waiting for a way out. Goddamn ant. I hate 'em. :grr:

[Ignoramus]

39. About 2 pints

Badum bum.

[Shakespeare]

42. FYI, a completely non-chemical way to get rid of them.

This usually works (but not always, but it's definitely worth a try).

If you have multiple fire ant beds in your yard, take a shovel full of dirt (and ants) from one bed, and dump it on another one (and vice versa). You'll have to work quickly, obviously, and be careful. Why does this work? Fire ant colonies are incredibly territorial, and will fight and kill each other.

[China_cat]

44. Fire ants are bad news

BUT, if you have fire ant mounds against your house, you can guarantee that you don't have termites. Fire ants eat them.

[LynneSin]

45. Something us Northerns will never have to deal with thank god

another reason to let the south secede again

[kick-ass-bob]

53. they aren't all that far from you.

never say never.

:scared:

[Shell Beau]

47. Ants that have a red tint and hurt more than other ants!

[AngryAmish]

49. I, for one, welcome our insect overlords

HAIL ANTS!

[MN ChimpH8R]

51. There are even worse ants

but thankfully there are a long way away.

http://www.answers.com/topic/driver-ant

[LT TX]

54. What is crazy

is that my hometown has a Fireant Fesitval every year. I never understood why you would celebrate those creatures...