Fascinating Facts About Fire Ants

Fascinating Facts About Fire Ants

Image Source: By Stephen Ausmus - http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/dec04/k11622-1.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10112924

1. Adult workers are small (about the size of a grain of rice), reddish brown in color with a darker abdomen. Fire ants are difficult to distinguish from other ants. Fire ants have two distinctive bumps between their abdomen and thorax, which is a key identification feature.

2. Within the Red Imported Fire Ant society, there are different classes of ants, called castes. Each of the different types of ants-wingless females, winged females, and males -has a specialized role. Each ant is faithful in its role to ensure the survival of the colony.

3. As in other ant colonies, the wingless, infertile, female Red Imported Fire Ant workers are dominant. They have several roles: to defend the colony, build the mound, forage for food, and tend the brood of immature ants known as larvae. The work of the ants within and outside of the colony is dictated by the needs of the queen and the brood. There are major and minor workers, and they are differentiated by head size.

4. Mounds can be two feet in diameter and up to 18 inches high. When mounds are disturbed, fire ants will aggressively emerge from the mounds and sting victim.

5. The fire ants are excellent predators and help control such pests as fleas and ticks in lawns.

6. The Red Imported Fire Ant, whose scientific name is Solenopsis invicta, was named “invincible” by scientists because of the ant’s aggressive behavior and the painful stings it inflicts.

7. The ant stings by first firmly grasping the victim’s skin with its jaws and then stinging the skin by injecting venom from its stinger, which is located at the end of the ant’s abdomen. Each Red Imported Fire Ant can sting multiple times. Its venom is unique because of the high concentration of toxins it contains. This causes a burning sensation at the sting site.

8. A Red Imported Fire Ant, in its immature stages, will rock back and forth to draw attention to itself.

9. They can “hitchhike” on birds or mass together to form a floating ball to ride out a flood.

10. A single fire ant can grab hold with its mandibles and then whip its abdomen down and sting multiple times, injecting the poison each time.

11. Fire ants include a large group of reddish-brown to black ants that normally spread by one of the following methods: seasonal relocations, migration in nursery stock, natural flights, and after floods rafting on water. Ants can be blown by the wind 12 miles during mating flights.

12. Fire ants are omnivores and will eat plant and animal material including mice, turtles, snakes, and other vertebrates, crops, plants, saplings, wildflowers, fruit, and grass but prefer insects.

13. Fire ants are pests in other ways besides their stinging. They are attracted to the AC and DC currents in electrical appliances. 

14. Fire ants have developed a unique method to keep from drowning. At first hint of rising water, worker ants gather the entire colony into a ball-sometimes as big as a basketball. As the water overtakes the mound, the ball rides the flood like a living raft, rolling in the water so all the members can take turns breathing. 

15. As in all insects, growth is accomplished by periodic molting, or shedding of the cuticle (skin) using an enzyme zipper.

16. Red Imported Fire Ants look similar to other types of ants-they are 1/16- to 1/4-inch in length.

17. Red Imported Fire Ants have a stinger on their abdomen that releases venom, which causes a burning sting. These ants can sting more than once.