Posted on 05/14/2008 8:09:18 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
But when you live here awhile you have roaches and cockroaches. The cockroaches are of course the water bugs. If you live here long enough, the cockroaches evolve into "La Cucaracha". Then we try to deport them.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......Rasberry!
Beats Crazy Ivan ants from Russia ;-)
I heard them referred to as water bugs as well......it’s a roach....
They have been here for years but I have not seen swarms. They do scramble around like, no better word, crazy.
I have a puppy that chews thru charged electrical wires so a few ants ain’t no thang.
Maybe we can start a rumor that these ants are bad for fluorescent light bulbs.
I used to catch those suckers as a kid and toss them in my hamster’s Habitrail. They’d crawl through the tubes and once the hamster caught the scent the chase was on ending in a frenzied rodent attack and crispy roach snack.
Cool....... I could see the fun in that....
Dallas roaches are small. If you want large ones, move to Louisiana or Mississippi.
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