Fire ant facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Fire ant |
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| Solenopsis queens and workers | |
| Scientific classification | |
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| Phylum: | |
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Uniramia
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| Class: | |
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Hymenoptera
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| Suborder: |
Apocrita
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Myrmicinae
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| Tribe: |
Solenopsidini
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| Genus: |
Solenopsis
John Obadiah Westwood, 1840
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| Species | |
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Solenopsis invicta |
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Fire ants are a type of ant that can sting. They are also known as ginger ants or tropical fire ants. These ants first came from South America. Now, they are a big problem in North America. They are famous for their very painful sting. This sting uses a special liquid called a base, not an acid.
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What Do Fire Ants Look Like?
Like most grown-up insects, fire ants have bodies split into three main parts. These parts are the head, the thorax (middle section), and the abdomen (tail end). They also have three pairs of legs and two antennae.
In places like the United States, you can tell fire ants apart from other ants. They have a copper-brown head and body. Their abdomen is usually darker. Worker ants can be blackish to reddish. They also come in different sizes, from about 2 to 6 millimeters long. In a single ant nest, you will see ants of all these different sizes at the same time.
Fire ants have a special way of stinging. They first bite to hold on. Then, they sting from their abdomen. They inject a harmful liquid called solenopsin. This liquid is a type of alkaloid venom. For people, the sting feels like a burn, which is how they got their name. For some people who are very sensitive, the sting can be dangerous.
How Do Fire Ants Behave?
A typical fire ant colony builds large dirt mounds in open areas. They mostly eat young plants and seeds. Fire ants often attack small animals and can even kill them.
Fire ants are much more aggressive than most ants that live in North America. Because of this, they have pushed many native ant species out of their homes. For example, they can invade the nests of bees, like the Euglossa imperialis orchid bee. They steal the contents of the bee cells.
These ants are very tough and can survive in difficult conditions. They do not sleep through winter. They can live through cold weather, but many colonies might die if it gets too cold for too long.
Where Do Fire Ants Build Their Homes?
Fire ants usually build their nests in the soil. They often choose moist places. These include river banks, pond shores, watered lawns, and sides of highways. Sometimes, you cannot see the nest because it is built under things. They might build under timber, logs, rocks, or bricks.
If there is nothing to hide under, they build dome-shaped mounds. You usually only see these mounds in open areas like fields, parks, and lawns. These mounds can be as tall as 40 centimeters (about 16 inches). In some soils, they can be even taller, reaching 1 meter (about 3 feet) high and 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) wide.
New colonies start with a few queens or just one queen. Even if only one queen lives, the colony can grow very quickly. In about a month, it can have thousands of ants. Some colonies can even have many queens living together in one nest.
How Do Fire Ants Survive Floods?
Fire ants are very good at surviving floods. During Hurricane Harvey in Texas, people saw huge clumps of fire ants floating on the water. Each clump could have as many as 100,000 ants. They form these temporary rafts until they find a new dry place to live.
How Did Fire Ants Come to the United States?
Fire ants accidentally arrived in the United States in 1918. They came on ships from South America. These ships carried heavy goods like machines from the U.S. to South America. On the way back, they often carried lighter things like crops. To make the ships more stable, they would add dirt as extra weight. This dirt sometimes contained fire ants.
In the United States, fire ants did not have many natural predators or competitors. Native animals were not used to these ants. Fire ants are very aggressive. Also, their colonies can have many queens, unlike many other ant species. Because of this, fire ants spread very quickly. By 1965, their mounds were all along the southeastern coast and as far west as Texas. Today, you can find them in at least 10 southern states. There is also a separate group of fire ants living in California.
What Problems Do Fire Ants Cause?
Fire ants have caused a lot of damage as they spread. They are attracted to electrical currents. They sometimes chew through wires, which can cause power outages. Fire ants have also harmed the natural balance of local ecosystems. In some areas, they have killed off 70% of the native ant species and 40% of other native insect species.
Each year, about 25,000 people need medical help because of painful fire ant bites. Fire ants attack in groups when their nest is disturbed. So, people often get many bites at once. Usually, fire ant bites are not dangerous. However, some people are allergic to fire ants. For them, the bites can cause a severe reaction called anaphylaxis, which can be very serious.
How Do People Fight Fire Ants?
Even 80 years after they arrived, fire ants are still spreading in the U.S. People have tried many different chemicals to fight them. These include things like ammonia, gasoline, parts of manure, and special insect-killing pesticides. However, none of these have worked very well to stop them. By 1995, the government had only approved one type of fire ant bait for widespread use.
Who Are the Predators of Fire Ants?
Phorid flies are small flies with a hump on their back. Two types of these flies, Pseudacteon tricuspis and Pseudacteon curvatus, are parasitoids of the red imported fire ant in South America. This means they live on or in the ant and eventually kill it.
These flies lay their eggs in the ant's thorax (middle body part). The tiny fly larva then moves to the ant's head. It grows by eating the ant's tissues. After about two weeks, the larva releases a special liquid that makes the ant's head fall off! The fly then turns into a pupa inside the detached head. Two weeks later, a new fly emerges.
Scientists believe these Pseudacteon flies help control fire ant numbers in their native home. Because of this, some of these flies have been brought to the southern United States. They were first released in parts of Texas and Alabama, where the ants first entered North America.
The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant that only grows naturally in North and South Carolina in the United States. About one-third of the insects it catches are ants, including fire ants. The plant lures insects with a sweet sap. When an insect touches two or three trigger hairs inside the trap, the leaf quickly closes. The plant then digests the insect. Other carnivorous plants, like sundews and different kinds of pitcher plants, also trap many ants.
Images for kids
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Solenopsis winged reproductive females, queens and workers
See also
In Spanish: Hormiga colorada para niños
