Fire ants

 

The distinctive conical mounds of red fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). On a trip to southeastern Texas last January, Shauna and I saw scores of these ant high-rises.

This South American insect was accidentally introduced into Alabama in the 1930’s and had spread to Texas by the 1950’s. They’re everywhere now.

Photo: Shauna Weyrauch

Your narrator lies along the verge of a seldom-traveled road through (or near) Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge (Newly rebranded as the Jocelyn Nungary NWR. I used Anahuac as that's still the much better-known name). I was down there to speak at the annual Sadie Gwinn Environmental Conference, put on by the River Oaks Garden Club. It was a great and very well-attended event in Houston, and my talk was about caterpillars and their importance.

Anyway, after driving past the umpteenth giant fire ant nest, I had to stop and work them. That's what I'm doing in the above photo. The Cleveland Clinic describes their sting thusly: "A fire ant sting causes an immediate, intense burning sensation, followed by red bumps, itchy welts, and characteristic white-fluid pustules within a day".

I poked the bear (nest), if you will, to better see the ants. Tiny, but with disproportionately large head and mandibles. Two of them got on my finger, which allowed me to better inspect them, but fortunately they didn’t bite and sting. I had no real desire to be covered with burning pustules that persist for days.

Sorry I couldn't do better with the ant photos. One, they're always racing around and I should have used a flash to help freeze movement. Two, I didn't feel I had very much time to be in such close proximity to them without getting some bites. But I would note that they did not get aggressive, although that may have been soon to come.

While many problems caused by fire ants are human-centric, such as chewed and shorted electrical lines, crop damage, and harm to livestock, they also can lay waste to native species such as indigenous insects completely unadapted to these voracious predators, lizards, birds that nest on the ground, and others.

But bad as they are, fire ants are here to stay from what I can see and will probably continue to expand. They have made it north nearly to Kentucky, and I imagine that one day they'll make it to Ohio.