What are fire ants?

[tiggrr]

Here's my fire ant story..."Ants in my Pants"

Several years ago wife and I decided to do a tourist thing in St Augustine. We found a quaint old hotel to spend the night that looked fairly neat and clean. Unknown to us this hotel had a bit of a fire ant infestation.

Well, it came time to bed down for the night and I plopped my pants down alongside the bed. During the night the ants decided that my pants would make a nice home. Next morning I got up, put my pants on the suddenly I was on fire, private areas included...Yanked my pants off and hopped into the shower for some relief. Since I was stung so badly we even made a morning trip trip to the drug store for Benedryl.

When we got home, wife wrote several biting letters to the hotel...to no avail...not even a free stay

I despise fire ants. They are horrible. The reason they made your pants their home is that they eat skin cells that have flaked off onto clothes.

I lived in FL briefly and they moved in on the 3rd day. Who would have known they like cat food????? They were everywhere. In the walls, in the carpet....had to call an exterminator.

The thought of them makes Michigan winter bearable.

 

[thevalkyry]

The thought of them makes Michigan winter bearable.

Nuh-uh .. fire ants can be avoided. I'm Texas born and bred and have had very few fire ant encounters. (They dont like sulphur if you're hiking - powder your socks; good against chiggers too.) So I will take ants over snow and cold every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

 

[scubatexastony]

I remember as a kid we would "fish" for red ants with a bit of bread tied to a string and shake them off in a big gallon jar, put in some wasps and watch the battles.... or some dirt and watch them make their tunnels. The red ants always won, but I'm sure it was the numbers game, as several would get tagged by the wasps sting. And I also noted the red ant STUNG the wasps with their stingers in their adomen (tail). There would be several dead soldiers after each battle.

Alas, the fire ants have killed and eaten all of the red ants, along with a good portion of the ticks and such...... just about any critter they can run down, and the shear numbers of fire ants enforces my theory of victory in numbers.

Now for the education..... "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 called Solenopsin, a compound from the class of piperidines. For humans, this is a painful sting, a sensation similar to what one feels when burned by fire hence the name fire ant ?

(Fire ant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)