Researchers at the University of Texas say an influx of crazy ants or tawny crazy ants could hurt the environment in the United States southeast region United Press International reported Monday.
"Perhaps the biggest deal is the displacement of the fire ant, which is the 300-pound gorilla in Texas ecosystems these days," Ed LeBrun, a research associate with the Texas invasive species research program told UPI. "The whole system has changed around fire ants. Things that can't tolerate fire ants are gone. Many that can have flourished. New things have come in. Now we are going to go through and whack the fire ants and put something in its place that has a very different biology. There are going to be a lot of changes that come from that."
'They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It's very expensive. Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only interact with you if you step on their mound."
According to UPI, crazy ants can annihilate insects of its kind, and live in crawl spaces, walls, plants. The ant species can also surround electrical equipment and wiring doing massive damage. This could result in operations to not function properly.
The species, which come from South America, and are known as omnivores do not fly, so they strut into people's things, and various areas to cause a ruckus.
The ant species was discovered in 2002, and have been located in various parts of Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
