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Fire ant queens, the reproductive females in their colony, also are generally the largest. Their primary function is reproduction. Typically, a fire ant queen will seek to establish a new colony following a nuptial flight, wherein it will use its special venom to paralyze offending competitors, [17] in the absence of workers for defense. Fire ...
Solenopsis invicta, the fire ant, or red imported fire ant (RIFA), is a species of ant native to South America. A member of the genus Solenopsis in the subfamily Myrmicinae, it was described by Swiss entomologist Felix Santschi as a variant of S. saevissima in 1916. Its current specific name invicta was given to the ant in 1972 as a separate ...
The southern fire ant (Solenopsis xyloni), also known as the Californian fire ant or cotton ant, [1]: 89 is a stinging fire ant native to southern parts of the United States. [2] [3] [4] Its behaviour is similar to the red imported fire ant (S. invicta), although its sting is less painful.
In the 1930s, colonies were accidentally introduced into the United States through the seaport of Mobile, Alabama.Despite earlier views that cargo ships from Brazil docking at Mobile unloaded goods infested with the ants, [1] recent DNA research confirmed that the likely source population for all invasive S. invicta in the United States occurred at or near Formosa, Argentina, and virtually ...
The Hawaii Ant Lab, a program of the University of Hawaii Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit, was granted $500, 000 by the state Legislature to battle little fire ants statewide.
The little fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata), also known as the electric ant, is a small (approx 1.5 mm (1 ⁄ 16 in) long), light to golden brown (ginger) social ant native to Central and South America, now spread to parts of Africa (including Gabon and Cameroon), Taiwan, [2] North America, Puerto Rico, [3] Israel, [4] [5] Cuba, St. Croix and six Pacific Island groups (including the ...
In gross but cool news, fire ants are actually dope little engineers. Vishwanath, an environmentalist, was documenting wildlife in the Madurai district of the Tamil Nadu state in India when he ...
Scientists found that 10 or more fire ants can stick together to build a life-saving raft in floods.. Fewer than 10 ants can’t form a stable raft because the “Cheerios effect” of fluid ...