Supercolony of ants spans thousands of miles

The Washington Times ^

[SamAdams76]

A supercolony of ants has been discovered stretching thousands of miles from the Italian Riviera along the coastline to northwest Spain.

It's the largest cooperative unit ever recorded, according to Swiss, French and Danish scientists, whose findings appear in today's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

[SamAdams76]

Ants are pretty amazing. I was in Alabama last week and observed some of the fire ant mounds down there. If you have never seen fire ants, it is quite something to see. They build huge mounds that can measure 18 inches high and if you disturb it in any way, hundreds of them will attack. If you stick a twig in one, the fire ants will have the stick covered in seconds. If you really mess one up, the ants will swarm everywhere. Some of these mounds can contain several hundred thousand ants.

I will probably post an article about these fire ants another time. They already cover most of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas and are advancing northward at a rate of about 15 miles a year. Soon they will cover most of Tennessee and North Carolina. If they ever are able to adapt to colder climes, they could make it into most areas in the United States.

You don't want these things in your backyard. Unfortunately, they have changed life for the worse down in Alabama. When I was a child, you could play in the pastures and meadows of northern Alabama. Not anymore, it is too risky. You don't ever want to step in one of these mounds. You will be covered with hundreds of stings almost instantly.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Interesting. I saw something about this a few days ago, I don't remember where. Pretty wild.

[thatsnotnice]

Southeast Texas is one big fire ant colony. My wife always used to ask me why I move around all the time – why I never stand still. You would adopt a fidgety characteristic if you grew up on an anthill too.

I’ve seen grown men at a church picnic remove pants, shirts – the works – and head for the water hose because they stood still too long while talking.

They don’t get you right at first. They wait until you are pretty much covered, then attack at the same time. You would think you could feel them crawling on you before you were 60% covered, but it happens. I don’t know how they do it… It’s one of those deals where you look down and see an ant. Then you see another one. Then your eyes focus and you realize you are covered with ants. That only happens once or twice and you learn to move around a lot.

I always thought that in the overall scheme of things, chiggers were a bigger pain than fire ants.

[Bogey78O]

I remember a movie a few years back where ants learnt how to strategize. Needless to say they kicked our butts.

[SamAdams76]

The reason that fire ants attack at once is because they respond to movement. So if you are standing still, the ants will be climbing up your legs and will not be stinging. But as soon as you move, they all will sting at once.

I've been going to Alabama on a regular basis since I was a kid. This is the worst year for fire ants I have yet seen. The pastures that I used to play baseball on are covered with fire ant mounds, making baseball impossible. When you walk out there, you must keep moving and watch where you are walking at all times. Even if you decide to lay down on a piece of ground far from the nearest mound, they will find you for their tunnels often run 15 feet underground away from the mounds and they are always foraging. There can be as many as 30 million foraging fire ants per acre (in infested areas) and they will try to eat anything that stands still for less than a minute.

[hawkk]

Your post didn't say, but I take it these ants are a form of fire ants? Maybe a worse kind? I have lived in FL for the past 6 yrs, and have dealt with them on a day to day basis, winter included. The only thing I have found to help control them is to go after them a few times a day (they move once you've disturbed the colony), and believe it or not, instant grits REALLY do work!!

[Montfort]

Ant colony stretching thousands of miles through Western Europe?

It sounds like the European Community.

[Ditter]

Would you explain what it is you do with instant grits?

[Mr.Clark]

A few years back NOVA did a documentary on African Army ants. It was really unbelievable, they would just swarm over an area in an ant wave attack and pretty much kill and destroy anything in their path.

[hawkk]

I know it sounds crazy, but the Sears guy told me this. Make sure the ground is dry (moisture will make it expand). They grab a piece, take it to the queen as food, and it explodes inside her. Try it, a mound will be dead in less than a day. But they move!! So keep after them.

[Ole Okie]

remember a movie a few years back where ants learnt how to strategize.

What was their strategery? ;^>

I moved from Oklahoma to Georgia a couple of years ago. Had never seen a fire ant up to that point. I was amazed at their size; they aren't much larger than the little brown ants that invade the kitchen looking for sugar. But their sting is more like the big red ants that were common in Oklahoma. Or think "wasp" in magnitude of pain.

Anyway, I've spent this spring trying to discourage the darned things. Poison a bed, and they'll just move a few feet and start another. And if you poke a stick into a bed, thousands of the things will immediately emerge. If (as I have done) you turn the ant hill over, you see that the visible hill is just chock full of tunnels - and fire ants.

I hate the darned things.

[Cvengr]

A supercolony of ants has been discovered stretching thousands of miles from the Italian Riviera along the coastline to northwest Spain.

Oh yeah,....well down here in Texas we might not have a supercolony that long, but the fire ants get to be 3 feet long. We sic the jackalope on them to keep them out of the yard at night. ;^)

Seriously though, I don't think that simply because two different ant colonies fail to attack one another is sufficient to claim a super colony over 100s of kilometers. It might actually justify a characteristic of a type of ant in a particular region as not being natually combative to foreign colonies,...hence no super colony, just a French ant.

[Ditter]

LOL Thats great,I'll try it. I have sugar ants in my kitchen, have any good remedies for them?

[hawkk]

I don't have the sugar ant prob...thank God, but I have seen something on those. I want to say it was something about putting a jar lid, filled with something, on the floor, counter, wherever your're having probs. I can't remember the exact stuff, but if you want to freepmail me, I can look it up for you. It's here in my puter somehwere!!

[Cvengr]

I wonder if articles such as this aren't simply some sort of Intel/counterintel encoded messages. I didn't recognize the Italian Rivera was 1000s of miles from Spain. It always seemed maybe several hundred miles away. What if the term ants was substituted for foreign bank accounts or securities, Operative names were similar and days seem like years. Who would ever question such technique?

[Uncle Meat]

Ortho makes some poison especially made for fire ants that work s good.It has to be some of the nastiest smelling stuff there is.It stinks so bad,it can gag a maggot.I battle them constantly in my yard ,speaking of building a tall mound,they built a nesy under the base of a lamp post I have in the middle of my patio.When I picked it up,there was sand that they dug up from the paving bricks all the way up the lamp post base.they then swarmed out all over the place.I used some of that Ortho and that did them in the next day.There was a thick ring of dead ants underneath.