Red fire ants

In the world there are only a few dangerous types of ants that can pose a threat to human life. One of them is the fiery red ants, which are not in vain called killers, because when bitten by any animal or person, their poison can cause burning pain and a severe allergic reaction, which can subsequently lead to death.

History of Red Ants

100 years ago, fire ants lived only in Brazil, until by chance in the 1930s they were brought by merchant ships to one of the ports of Alabama, USA. Once in a climate favorable to them, without encountering any opposition from the local fauna, ants began to multiply rapidly, gradually mastering the territories of all the southern states of North America and Mexico.

Already in 2001, again, with the help of maritime trade, they came to Australia, New Zealand, then to China, the Philippines and the smaller Pacific islands.

On a note!

Many countries are studying this type of insect, conducting scientific research, developing methods for their destruction, as well as ways to treat people and animals from their bites. The total US losses are equivalent to $ 5 billion annually, which are spent on medical care for injured people and animals, on chemicals for their destruction.

In the process of developing a new territory, fire ants harm not only people and pets, they displace and kill their brothers of local varieties, they can attack nests of crocodiles, turtles and birds located not high above the ground.

Description of the species and features

The fire ant has a very small size: females are 2-4 mm in red-brown color, males are darker, almost black. The photo of a red ant shows that its body consists of a head with jaws, a body, 6 strong legs, a set of mustaches and a sting, which is hidden in the abdomen.

In nature, they build low anthillsforming mounds on the ground up to 0.5 m in height and diameter. There is a clear distribution of roles for workers, food producers, security guards, builders, queen queen and nannies who feed offspring.

Between several nests, ants build multi-meter underground passages along which they can run across and, when meeting with neighboring "warriors," get into fights.

Interesting!

Unusual fact about ants concerns their savvy and ability to survive. Though ant colony life passes on land, but in their homeland they often suffer from floods. To survive, the red ants were able to come up with such a means of salvation as a living raft from their own bodies, fastened with powerful jaws. Such a structure can float for several weeks.

When bitten, the ant uses a sting and injects at several points the poison of solenopsin, which belongs to the class of alkaloids. It causes a burning pain, which feels like a burn from a fire, for which they gave this name to an insect. Affected people often have an allergic reaction, accompanied by edema, vomiting, dizziness, anaphylactic shock and even death are possible. In place ant bite blisters appear, after healing of which scars often remain.

Nutrition and Reproduction

Plant and animal food is what the red ants eat and what the colony population feeds. These are grasses, young shoots of shrubs, various insects and their larvae, caterpillars, as well as small animals: mice, frogs, lizards and snakes, bird eggs, carrion and carcasses of animals.

During the hunt, ants act together. Attacking the victim, they inject a dose of poison into it, which causes severe burning sensation and pain, in order to then eat it freely or drag it into their home to feed the growing larvae.

Like all representatives of insects, the development of an ant occurs in 4 stages:

• uterine egg deposition, with 1 female giving offspring in an amount of up to 250 thousand in her life;
• emergence from an egg of a larva similar to a small worm, which is fed by the working population of the colony;
• pupation;
• transformation into an adult insect.

On a note!

Breeding methods fire ants are of interest to scientists: some males and females can clone themselves to increase the number of working individuals.

Human behavior when bitten by a fire ant

According to statistics, every year, from the bites of these insects in the world, 30-35 people die in which their highly toxic poison causes a serious state of health, which justifies their status killer ants. Therefore, everyone needs to know how to introduce themselves if they were accidentally bitten by a red fire ant:

• feeling an insect bite, you must immediately move away from the habitat of these monsters, being careful;
• the insect must be carefully removed from the skin or clothing, it will not work to shake off;
  

  Important!

  In no case should you crush such ants, as the corpse begins to emit a smell, signaling the danger of other residents of the nearby colony, calling them for help.

• to free the bitten skin from clothes and rinse with cold water, it is better to put a cooling compress;
• apply an antibiotic ointment to the site of the bite to prevent infection;
• be sure to take allergy pills, then immediately seek medical attention from doctors.

The harm caused by ants and methods of struggle

Although fiery predators bring some benefit by eating pests of cereals, legumes, planting rice and reeds, but they are more capable of causing trouble.

Settling in a certain territory, an ant colony brings a lot of harm to the environment and agriculture:

• inflicts painful bites on wild and domestic animals, which affects farmers and the owners themselves;
• feed on plants from agricultural land;
• eat grain stocks on farms;
• damage buildings;
• arranging anthills on the paths of work of combines and mowers, interfere with normal operation.

Over the past decades, American scientists have used many methods and techniques for the destruction of red fire ants. Initially, they tried to poison pests with pesticides by spraying them from helicopters. Then this method was found to be harmful to surrounding insects and animals.

In the fight against the “fire invasion” they used methods of digging out nests, pouring them with boiling water and liquid nitrogen, but in this situation, the uterus learned to crawl deep into the ground and wait for all the troubles there to later crawl out and lay eggs, to ensure the previous growth of the ant population.

The most original method of struggle was the breeding of humpback flies, which used ants to grow their offspring. The humpback lays its egg directly on the ant, and the hatched larva, immobilizing its breadwinner with the help of a paralyzing enzyme, gradually eats it for almost 40 days.

But all this still does not bring positive results, and the resettlement of red fire ants around the world continues.