Truemors
Opinion
Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor
Certainly a case of the Environment fighting back, in Crazy Ants running rampant in Texas shorting out everything from Computers to Gas Lines. Short of stomping on their Tiny Heads, converntial pesticides do not seem to work.
DALLAS -- In what sounds like a 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.
The ants were first spotted in Texas in 2002 and are believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston.
They're attracted to electrical equipment and have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one home gas meter.
The Associated PressVoracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area.CRAZY RASBERRY ANTS
The small, hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known by that name: "crazy," because they wander erratically instead of marching in lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who battled them early on.
They're formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens."
SPREADINGThe ants, first spotted in Texas in 2002, have spread to five Houston-area counties – Harris, Brazoria, Galveston, Montgomery and Wharton. Scientists are not sure where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWSThey eat fire ants, but they also like plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs and eat the hatchlings of the Attwater prairie chicken. They bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.
ELECTRICAL DAMAGEThey are attracted to electrical equipment. Scientists don't know why. The ants have ruined pumps, fouled computers and caused fire alarms to malfunction.
NO CONTROLSExterminators say the ants – which are starting to emerge by the billions – appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.
RESEARCHThe Texas Department of Agriculture is working with Texas A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants.
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