Okay, well, maybe not quite GIANT, but still bigger than I’m used to.
Coming from the LA area, I’m used to very tiny ants that travel in large groups, much like how ants are usually portrayed. Now I’m at college in Santa Cruz, and my apartment (Kresge College at UCSC) is infested with these big ants, about a little more than an inch in length! What’s odd is that the first time I saw one, it was just one solitary Giant Ant walkin’ around my bathroom. I assumed it was a queen ant, so I quickly got rid of it, and decided that was that.
And then the next day, another ant of similar size was found in my shower! This time, I drowned the bug, and hoped I wouldn’t see another one. Unfortunately, I found Giant Ant No. 3 about half an hour ago…
So I guess my question is: why are the ants at UCSC bigger than ants in Los Angeles?? I’ve seen the tiny variety here too, so I’m really at a loss. Also, how come these ants are just wandering alone rather than in big packs? Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather just deal with one big ant than a whole bunch of them, but I’m still very curious.
They’re the ones that were exposed to Red Kryptonite. Eventually they’ll hypnotize you into killing Superman with Green Kryptonite. But it’s just a dream.
No, wait, it was some whacky professor who wanted to develop an enlarging ray to take advantage of the proportional strength of ants. Scrooge McDuck had to use all the spare coin silver he brought to attract them back to the lab.
No, wait. It was all that atomic testing in the desert. Daniel Boone (or was it Davy Crockett?) saw the queens crawling into the LA sewer system.
No, wait. It was Joan Collins on a sugar plantation. But the ants looked really cheesy.
Ants usually send out advance scouts. That is probably what you are seeing. If they find something interesting they’ll head home and leave a chemical trail for lots of other ants to follow back to your place.
Spend some time watching them, ants are very interesting critters. It is cool when you are in the jungle and see an ant hill the size of an office desk. It is also cool when you see a trail carved out of the jungle just by the ants.
FTR, the biggest ant that I saw was probably at least 1 1/4 inches long.
I live in Santa Cruz too… well Soquel specifically… and I have not seen one of these giant ants you are referring to.
I grew up in Tahoe, so when I though of “ants”, I assumed all ants were carpenter ants… not even close to an inch long, but large nonetheless. I’m assuming the ants you are seeing are not these, correct?
If I remember correctly, UC Santa Cruz is situated in a forest with many trees on campus. In fact, Kresge has a dense patch of forest around it. These big ants are probably carpenter ants, which can be freaking huge compared to other varities of ants. Out in the forest there by Kresge, you will probably find lots of them in the dead logs, etc. If Kresge is made of wood, better notify maintenance about your sighting. A carpenter ant infestation in a wooden structure is bad news.
The little ones who travel groups of thousands and live in urban areas are Argentine ants, an invasive, non-native species. You’ve now met one of the native ant species of the redwood forest. I’m not enough of an entomologist to tell you too much more about the lifestyle of the local ants, but over the several years I lived in the redwoods not too far north of you, I never saw the native ants in large numbers. They seem to forage pretty much individually.
That makes lots of sense. How terrifying though; I certainly hope they don’t find anything interesting- I certainly don’t want a whole bunch of these things crawling around!
I do find these ants pretty cool. The first one I followed for a bit, until I decided it was squashing time. It was interesting to see it contort its body at times; occasionally it would stop and rub its attenae together.
Those could very well be the ants I’m seeing, in which case I definitely should contant maintenance (my apartment at Kresge is very much made of wood). I’ve noticed some relatively large ants around the area (I’ve actually been here at UCSC for three years now, so I’ve had a good chance to get to know the critters in the area pretty well) but not nearly as big as the first one I saw. All the ants I’ve seen since the first have been smaller; is there a chance that the first ant I killed was a queen?
By the way, I noticed yet another ant (no. 4 by now) in my bathroom. This one’s not nearly as huge as the first one was; that one a little more than an inch long. I videotaped this last one, and I’ll try and put up a picture.
Wow. I lived in the S.F. Bay area for 20 years, and spent quite a bit of time in Santa Cruz, and I’ve never seen an ant even close to an inch long. I’d consider a half-inch ant to be huge. I, too, would like to see a picture of one of these monsters, preferably with some household item(s) nearby for scale.
Same here. Carpenter ants are supposedly among the largest you are likely to see in the US, and most guides say they are 1/4 to 1/2 inch long (queens 3/4 inch, but you aren’t that likely to see a queen). I would normally suspect that the OP was overestimating the size a bit, but they seem fairly certain. Maybe UCSC is home to some unusually large carpenter ants. It’s probably best to suspect they ARE carpenter ants, and have an exterminator check the place out. It’s not a dire emergency - if you’re already infested with them, they aren’t going to chew the building down tomorrow, but it is serious.
Another way to recognize carpenter ants is to look for the tiny toolbelts they wear, and rude comments made to passing female ants such as, “Woo baby! You’ve got nice legs-all six of 'em”.
An infestation should seriously be checked out-more than one renovation project I’ve done ended up costing the homeowner more because of wood destroying insects and the unplanned/unseen damage that had to be repaired.
