Ants Swarming Over Houston Area, Causing Electronic Havoc

[Evilmav2]

Ants Swarm Over Houston Area, Fouling Electronics

May 14 03:16 PM US/Eastern
By LINDA STEWART BALL
Associated Press Writer

Houston (AP) - In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants"—crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

The ants—formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens"—have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.

"At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed," said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.

The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.

But the ants also like to suck the sweet juices from plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs, and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken.

They also bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.

Worse, they, like some other species of ants, are attracted to electrical equipment, for reasons that are not well understood by scientists.

They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner's gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA's Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven't caused any major problems there yet.

Exterminators say calls from frustrated homeowners and businesses are increasing because the ants—which are starting to emerge by the billions with the onset of the warm, humid season—appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.

"The population built up so high that typical ant controls simply did no good," said Jason Meyers, an A&M doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on the one-eighth-inch-long ant.

It's not enough just to kill the queen. Experts say each colony has multiple queens that have to be taken out.

At the same time, the ants aren't taking the bait usually left out in traps, according to exterminators, who want the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen restrictions on the use of more powerful pesticides.

And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.

"It looked like someone had come along and poured coffee granules all around the perimeter of the rooms," said Lisa Calhoun, who paid exterminators $1,200 to treat an infestation of her parents' home in the Houston suburb of Pearland.

The Texas Department of Agriculture is working with A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants.

"This one seems to be like lava flowing and filling an entire area, getting bigger and bigger," said Ron Harrison, director of training for the big pest-control company Orkin Inc.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

[sike]

I've recently been in a foreign country and bitten by their ants...and let me just tell you...it aint the same.

These bites are seriously bothersome...and they were tiny freakin ants.

[chumdawg]

Those sound like bad-ass freakin' ants. I'm talking superhero sort of bad. Someone should make a movie.

[Stranger]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Those sound like bad-ass freakin' ants. I'm talking superhero sort of bad. Someone should make a movie.

Them!

[sike]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Those sound like bad-ass freakin' ants. I'm talking superhero sort of bad. Someone should make a movie.

but who would play the villain? Mankind for getting in their way and destroying the forests?

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by sike

but who would play the villain? Mankind for getting in their way and destroying the forests?

Ants like that don't need no villain.

[Evilmav2]

Originally Posted by sike

but who would play the villain? Mankind for getting in their way and destroying the forests?

The wretched city of Houston would serve as a pretty good villain, and I strongly hold to a view that it's also a darned deserving place for malevolent ant swarms to cause bad problems. Rampaging fires; Hot rains of brimstone falling from the sky; Human-shaped salt pillars frozen on the outskirts of the city; Electronics-fouling ant swarms; More and bigger hurricanes; More shark and jellyfish attacks on humans... I'd personally say that these are all things that the largest contiguous incorporated city in the United States well, well deserve, and I would be happy to see them all happen to the city of Houston...


Subsidence City

[Windmill360]

You can't control what the ants do. Damn, Y'all hilarious.

[MavsX]

And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.

smart f8cking ants. This was probably Iran's doing.

[Underdog]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Evilmav2 again.

You can't control what the rep do...

[MavsX]

[bernardos70]

Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

[nikeball]

"MCGRADY MISSES THREE GAMES DUE TO ANT BITE."

[Evilmav2]

Originally Posted by bernardos70

Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

Hungry Black Ant King says: "Let the Fall of Mankind give rise to a New Hymenopterian Age. Bow down, for we are your Masters now..."

[GuerillaBlack]

Damn these ants. They don't hurt humans though. They eat up fire ants, too, so that is a good thing.

And Evilmav2, Houston isn't the largest continuous US city. That is Jacksonville, followed by Oklahoma City. Then Houston.

[Evilmav2]

Originally Posted by GuerillaBlack

And Evilmav2, Houston isn't the largest continuous US city. That is Jacksonville, followed by Oklahoma City. Then Houston.

Well, I'll be darned. You are absolutely right in pointing out that Houston isn't the largest anymore, although, I'm pretty sure it was at one time- back at least as recently as the 80's. It's still a good place for ant swarms though...

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by GuerillaBlack

... Houston isn't the largest continuous US city. That is Jacksonville, followed by Oklahoma City. Then Houston.

What does that even really mean?

Just that they haven't had the good sense to rename the outlying areas Anaheim or Hoboken, or San Jose, or whatever?