Sunday 2 October 2011

Hairy Crazy Ants invade the south, video and story.

"Crazy" because they zip so fast, biters, and about 1/8th of an inch long, they've been detected since 2009 from Texas to Mississippi.  The AP story by Janet McConnaughey is quoted in Drudge but there's no video.  When Nylanderia pubens arrives, fire ants disappear.  Supplementary information from Kari Daquine of the Times Picayune.   They come from South America, were first seen in Florida in the fifties, group in colossal numbers and join the colonies of other species.  A few thousand on the motherboard of your computer will short it out.  They are called 'crazy' for their erratic motion, "like ants on speed".

Joe MacGowan
The clip below was recorded by McGowan, the Mississippi State University entomology museum curator quoted in Janet's story.  About the 1:55 mark, he puts his hand by the ants and in three seconds has sixty of them swarming his fingers.









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