Well, were they?
These ‘crazy ants’ love to munch on cellphones and TVs. Are they headed your way?
the news tribune | 6 Dec 2016 | Ben GuarinoAlthough the insects are so named for their swarming maneuvers, the term is equally apt for the damage they inflict on the human psyche. For reasons not fully understood, the ants are found in large numbers near electrical equipment and wall sockets. Cellphones and television sets have succumbed to the ant swarms, and the insects damaged electronics in a Houston-area industrial park…
Like the infamous fire ant, the crazy ant is a South American native that made its way to the Lone Star state. The animals do not coexist peacefully. The crazy ant – despite its less painful venom – has a chemical upper hand, scientists discovered in 2014. The crazy ants secrete a substance that neutralizes the fire ant acid, and are thus able to overwhelm the enemy ants….
Also, my random thought of the night:
I have often thought of impugning those who do not respect silent “g”s.
Relax. It’s actually quite benign.
My gnome is unimpressed.
Oriental Immigrant:
“I hatey Merica and you silent “h”s too. I “might” go back Shanghai now. Why it not “mite”? I hatey Mericans”!….and you silent “e”s too.”
I used to have a crazy ant. She divorced my favorite uncle.
(Couldn’t find the appropriate Groucho image for this.)
It’s just another insect invasion but I wasn’t expecting some type of Spanish Inquisition.
— Harvey, 6/4/13, three years before the crazy ant invasion.
When I was a teenager I worked at a summer camp in the Texas hill country. The fire ants there were fierce.
We slept in canvas army tents and if we didn’t trace the outside with a Sevin dust “line of death” we’d get swarmed.
When we left sweaty t shirts out the ants would eat the salt left in the shirts from the sweat and subsequently eat holes in the shirts.
Wash them you say? Well they started to get a taste for detergent residue from clean shirts too. More holes.
There are more fire ant stories from that camp but this is getting too long.
Having lived briefly in the forest north of Houston I, too, have many fire ant stories. Here’s one.
On 4th of July we would stand up a Black Cat fire cracker on the ant mound then quickly light the fuse and run. Occasionally, the determined swarm of sacrificial ants would successfully snuff it out.
Scary, that.
It wasn’t just happening to me?!?!
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords and would like to remind them I can be helpful in rounding up others …