The “Shocking Lives” Of Crazy Ants
If some electronic device in your home malfunctioned or stopped working, like your computer or air conditioning, you would probably call a capable repairman. However, in some cases, you may end up needing to call an exterminator for your electronic troubles, buy why? Well, it is becoming more common for people today, especially in the gulf coast region of the USA, to experience electronic malfunctions or short circuits as a result of ant infestations.
During the year of 2002 large colonies of strange looking ants were found located in Houston, Texas. These ants quickly revealed their remarkable ability to reproduce in vast numbers as well as destroy your electronic appliances. This type of ant was finally revealed to belong to the species Nylanderia fulva, or “crazy ants.” This revelation occurred more than a decade after the ants were spotted in Houston. Crazy ants are native to northern South America, so how they wound up populating the USA is not exactly known.
It turns out that crazy ants are unique in that they do not build their own nests, rather they look for small cavities of space inside of people’s homes to live and reproduce. Add to that the crazy ants ability to reproduce much faster than any other type of ant species, as well as their minute size, and you will find that they enjoy crawling inside of electronic devices, such as cell phones, air conditioners, or radios. Once the ants gain access to an electronic device they crawl around and electrocute themselves, which results in short circuits and ultimately useless electronic devices.
The bigger problem lies in the fact that once the ants are electrocuted they release pheromones that attract other ants to the dangerous electrical environment. For this reason people all over the south of the United States have been experiencing the sudden destruction of their electronic equipment. In fact, one exterminator found tens of thousands of tiny crazy ants ravaging the innards of an air conditioner. I have heard of ant infestations, but this news is rather…”shocking.”
Since these ants reproduce with much greater frequency than any other ants known to man, could the larger colonies of crazy ants endanger native ants with smaller colonies?