The tawny crazy ant has supplanted the fire ant atop the list of pests that researchers say Texas needs to get under control, the Austin American-Statesmen reported.
According to the article, several Houston-area suburbs can attest to crazy ants’ destructive habits: swarming across the landscape, nesting in virtually every cavity they can find, along the way ravaging electronics, taking up residence in drywall and disrupting local ecosystems.
Crazy ants are now found in 23 Texas counties, including Travis, Hays and Williamson, according to Texas A&M’s Center for Urban and Structural Entomology.
Despite this expansion, as the article noted, crazy ant populations expand slowly, perhaps a couple of hundred yards a year. It’s humans who appear to be spreading them across vast distances, LeBrun said – first by bringing them up from South America, then letting colonies sneak into potted plants or plywood or hay bales and hitch a ride.
The article also noted that nature has a way of keeping crazy ants in check in South America. Several other species of ants tend to kill crazy ants by outcompeting them for food. UT science writer Marc Airhart compares the situation to a game of rock-paper-scissors: crazy ants beat fire ants, fire ants beat other ants, and other ants beat crazy ants.