Crazy Rasberry [sic] Ants Invade Houston

The headline looks like a very bad 1950s sci-fi film. It isn’t, though. A new species of ant has hit the greater Houston area, and they are actually called 'crazy rasberry ants' -- rasberry with out a "p." The Associated Press says, “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.” These little guys are getting everywhere, even into computers as they have a fondness for electricity.

These flea-sized critters, formally known as paretrenicha species near pubens turned up on a cargo ship back in 2002 and quickly found that Houston was the land of ant-opportunity. They have invaded houses and offices and have gummed up sewage pumps and air conditioning units. And they seem to be immune to the over-the-counter bug sprays on the market

The good news for Texans is that the crazy rasberry ants actually eat fire ants. Fire ants are nasty thugs in the insect world and their bite is not only annoying, but also it’s down right painful. So, they are providing a certain predatory service in the local ecosystem.

Unlike most ant species, the crazy rasberry ant relies on several queen ants in its colony. That means that an exterminator would need to get them all to get the colony. Just getting one colony isn’t going to help much either. Roger Gold, an entomologist at Texas A&M University, noted, “At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed.”

Iain Thompson at vnunet.com reported, “Ants can be a major problem around electrical items as they eat through cable insulation on power lines and congregate on metal conductors, causing shorts in electrical lines, junction boxes, traffic and street lights and air conditioners.It is unclear why ants are so attracted to electricity. A study by the University of Texas found that they prefer DC to AC current, but could find no reason for the attraction.”

As Douglass Adams once observed, “Reason notwithstanding the universe continues unabated.”

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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