Fire ants first started becoming common here in South Carolina in the late 80s/early 90s. They used to be everywhere, and no matter how much poison you used on the mounds, it wasn’t long before a new mound popped up. They are so small that you can’t keep them out of your house with anything short of an airlock, and they know how to cut their way into unopened food packages. They would build small nests in electronics (for the warmth.) I’d hate to guess how many hundreds of times I’ve been stung by them, both inside and out. And it became a rare novelty to see a “normal” larger, non-stinging native ant. They were little short of a biblical-level plague.
And yet, in the past few years I see only a small fraction as many as I used to, either mounds or individuals/lines of them foraging, and “normal” ants are common sights again. Anyone else noticed a decline? Is it possible that some population-controlling factors have come into play?
Here in Texas, we got them in the late 70s - I recall getting stung by one the first time when I was a teenager.
I have wondered if there are fewer mounds than there used to be, or whether it’s just me getting numb to seeing them. When I lived on a typical suburban lot in Plano, I got them all the time, but now I live on a lot that’s completely covered by big trees, and I don’t recall seeing a single mound in my yard in the 15 years I’ve been here. I suspect they like open areas bettter. Because they’re not such of an issue for me anymore, maybe I just don’t notice them as much.
Much fewer fire ants in South Florida where I’ve lived for 50 years. Less mosquitoes too. Less honeybees. Less flees, less ticks. Maybe its just that so much more land is paved and urbanized, but come to think of it, I’m not even seeing dragonflies over my pool anymore. They were common a few years ago. And the wasp nests I battled for years around my house also seem gone.
Oh, that reminds me of a photo I took in the early 2000s–sitting on my front porch, I noticed a black ant (of unknown native species) doing something pretty active, and I when I got close I saw that it was busily decapitating fire ants–not eating them, just killing every one in reach. (Not that I’m implying “ant wars” to be a cause for their perceived decline, just a pretty cool photo.)
Sounds like the OP is mixing up some characteristics of fire ants with crazy ants. The latter likes to invade homes and snuggle in electronics. Never heard of fire ants doing that.
The article Crotalus links to mentions something interesting: former multi-queen colonies are now single queen. The latter is the norm for most species. But when a new type of ant invades an area, the resulting colonies have negligible genetic variation which means that the offspring of different queens don’t recognize each other as non-siblings and therefore don’t go to war but just mix in with them.
An extreme example of this are Argentine ants which have formed basically one giant single colony in S. California.
Perhaps some mutations have occurred and now different colonies can spot the difference. This results in greater spacing between colonies and hence fewer mounds/acre. But once that happens, the population will again stabilize.
So, maybe the solution to invasive stuff like the Argentine ants is to bring in more ants from the native range to introduce genetic variation.
Fire ants DO like getting into ‘electrical areas’ of where there is cabling, etc. It was one reason the proposed Texas Supercollider was abandoned (per my friend’s Dad, a geologist on the project) anda link to an article about it.
I grew up just north of Houston, and can remember fire ants getting into AC units and other outdoor electrical sites. They love those places, IME, though that was 35-40+ yrs ago. Just saying…
An article says that crazy ants are displacing fire ants, and that droughts and hard freezes kill fire ants.
Have there been any hard freezes in Miami ?
Depends on where in Texas; they were in SE Texas as early as the 1950s, and they were imported into the US through Mobile, AL in the 1930s.
I don’t see them as frequently in N. Texas as I did in SE Texas (Houston/Galveston area). Perhaps there’s some sort of climate-related factor that makes a difference, and drier/colder areas see less infestation?
Anecdotally, it does seem rather weird that I can’t remember finding but maybe one or two fire ant mounds in my backyard over the nearly 10 years since I’ve lived in our house. Growing up, there was always a sort of continual anti-fire ant patrol- kids would find them, report them to the parents, who’d usually treat the yard with Amdro and dump a big pot of boiling water on the mound. Problem solved… for a while until more ants migrated into the yard.
Good link, with an interesting bit I never knew about Phoridae flies, which resemble fruit flies, that were intentionally introduced to fight the fire ants.
I can backup this anecdotal evidence over a period of ~40 years. There sure are a lot of those things I used to think were just native fruit flies, though…
Whoops!
That particular spraying is very recent and the phenomenon being discussed has been happening for some time, but there has always been regular insecticide spraying to control the general mosquito population, so who knows…
Then there is no current, and no right hand rule magnetic field to attract them. Perhaps that is just an easy entrance, and they can chill out on current flow inside the house.
No it means they survive those events in Texas.
Drought is the amount of rain, but of course rock contains ground water and texas plants survive the drought and provide moisture to ants while there is a drought.
But your use of “hard freeze” in texas ?? Texas freeze is a layer of snow for a few days. A new england hard freeze is frozen ground down so deep for months. I dont think Texas gets hard freeze, so Texas is no counter example.
Florida… the ants like a Florida “Drought”. They don’t survive the season of water logged ground.
