5 Things I Didn’t Know About Fire Ants
1. A typical fire ant colony produces large mounds in open areas, and feeds mostly on young plants, seeds, and sometimes crickets. Fire ants often attack small animals and can kill them. Unlike many other ants, which bite and then spray acid on the wound, fire ants only bite to get a grip and then sting (from the abdomen) and inject a toxic alkaloid venom (piperidine). For humans, this is a painful sting, which leaves a sensation similar to what one feels when he gets burned by fire — hence the name fire ant — and the aftereffects of the sting can be deadly to sensitive individuals. The venom is both insecticidal and antibiotic. Researchers have proposed that nurse workers will spray their brood to protect them from microorganisms. Source
2. Today they are found in most of the southeastern states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia. It is not uncommon for several fire ant mounds to appear suddenly in a suburban yard or a farmer’s field, seemingly overnight. And the part about them being in a suburban yard… that means you don’t wander out in bare feet.
3.About 5 million Americans are stung every year!
Fire Ant Stings – At least 5 million Americans are stung every year! The CPCO ADVANTAGE – January 1999 noted: A survey conducted in just South Carolina revealed that in the single year 1990, physicians reported treating 5000 cases of imported fire ant stings on humans. This represented a 14-fold morbidity. In all, there were 27 hospitalizations, one death and 170 cases requiring imported fire ant desensitization by an allergy specialist. An updated imported fire ant sting survey is about to get underway. Source
4. “A person who stops to stand on a mound or one of its tunnels, or who leans against a fence post included in the defended area, can have hundreds of ants rush out to attack. Typically, the ants can be swarming on a person for 10 or more seconds before they grab the skin with their mandibles, double over their abdomens, and inject their stingers. That is why some people die! This does not happen in their native land where the fire ants fear phorid fly species who only live to torture and kill fire ants. Phorid flies are being currently evaluated in Gainesville, Florida.”
5. 
The area in red shows just how much land fire ants have claimed for their own. The green area is possible, the blue is undetermined and the pale blue is unlikely. Source
3 Comments
Gee, SP, you make them sound really scary!!! And it looks like they’re slowly gaining access to the entire US!
They are scary and they leave the most ugly little welts as a reminder of their bite. I’m a lot more careful now.
[...] will make you itch and squirm while sharing five facts about fire ants (shudder) that you may not know. Continuing in the vein of things people apparently don’t [...]