The first time I heard about fire ants was about 50 years ago when I was in junior high. It was in Mr. Dorsey’s sixth or seventh grade science class. He was scornful of a state program to eradicate fire ants in south Georgia by aerial spraying of insecticides. He said it would never work; what they needed to do was inject poison into each fire ant nest individually.
That would have been a more ecologically sound approach, since aerial spraying would kill lots of other potentially beneficial bugs and would have killed very few fire ants. Mound-by-mound poisoning might have provided some control in limited locations, but it would have been impossible to find every nest.
For the next couple of decades I didn’t think once about fire ants. And then, one day when I was in graduate school in the early ‘80’s I took at run out into the country behind my parents’ house. For some reason at about the two-mile point I stopped, maybe to take a breather or to let a car pass. I happened to stand in tall grass right on top of a fire ant mound. It was only a matter of seconds before at least one fire ant made it over my shoe and sock to my ankle, where it stung me.
At that point I started noticing fire ant mounds, and once I started noticing them, they seemed to be everywhere. Most sources say they were originally introduced into North America at the port of Mobile around 1940. For a while it seemed like the invasion of fire ants was unstoppable, and they were going to spread and overwhelm everything. The limit to their range seems to be low temperatures and dry conditions.
This is a USDA map that shows the potential range of fire ants. The lightest blue indicates areas where expansion of the range is unlikely. The red is areas with confirmed populations.
This is a USDA map on a University of Texas site showing the history of the fire ants’ expansion:
If I’m reading the map correctly, Floyd County, where we live, is in the 1975-1984 expansion, which is consistent with my impress of when they started showing up around here.
If you don’t have fire ants, you can consider yourself lucky. They are extremely aggressive when defending their nests. If the nest is disturbed, they swarm out in masses and, if you happen to be in the way, they swarm up your feet until they find flesh, and then they latch onto your skin with their pinchers and swing their abdomens around as they sting repeatedly.
I have read at least one Web site that compared the pain intensity of various stings. This site gives a fairly low ranking to the fire ant sting, below a yellowjacket. It’s hard to remember pain levels from 30 years ago, but my impression at the time was not consistent with that. I would have ranked it about the same as a yellowjacket sting, but with longer-lasting effects.
These days my overall impression is that fire ants seem to have reached some kind of equilibrium population. I don’t seem to see as many mounds along the side of the road as I used to. That’s far from a scientific observation, though, and my impression may be wrong. The extension service mentions a pathogen (among other natural enemies) that attacks fire ants. Maybe that has something to do with it.
This is a fire ant nest behind our house. It’s a foot away from an existing nest which I disturbed about a month ago when I borrowed some dirt to use in another place in the yard. You may have trouble reading the tape measure; the mound is about a foot in its widest dimension. It’s a relatively small nest at this point.
The nests are quite deep. It’s easy to drive a stick six inches into such a nest, which I did.
I tried to manipulate the image so the ants are more visible. These ants are darker than the typical red fire ants I most often see around here. I keep my distance when I do something like this. This nest is in line for a dose of fire ant poison, which seems to either kill the nest or drive the ants to some other place.
If you have ants you think might be fire ants, I suggest that you not stick a finger into the mound to test it. Instead, try identifying them by pictures like these.
The title shows the popular scientific name Solenopsis invicta. However, these fire ants were first identified and named wagneri. At this point I’m not sure which name will win.
Mark: Having lived in central Florida for seven years, I’m VERY familiar with fire ants (whatever their species name). We used to try to kill the nests in our yard with a poisoned bait called Amdro, I believe (boy, that’s dredging up memories from 26 years ago). I do have a “good” story about my first serious encounter with fire ants. In my job, I was in a position to help a scientific investigator do some research on bird use in abandoned and flooded phosphate ore surface mine pits. One night, the investigator and I spent the entire night zooming around the flooded pits in an air-boat censusing birds on their roosts. When we got back to shore at daybreak, I jumped off the air-boat to help pull it ashore–and stood for quite a while on a fire ant nest. Before I knew what was happening, many ants had crawled up my legs and had begun stinging me. Obviously, when that happened, I freaked out, pulled down my pants, and did my best to swipe, swat, and dislodge the ants. Nevertheless, I received what turned out to be over 40 stings.
After a while, I began to feel sick. I attributed it to having been up all night working. I begged off work the following day (to which my boss grudgingly agreed) and I drove home to get some sleep. All the while I felt worse and worse. I finally got home and told Kali (who didn’t have a job at the time and was still sleeping) that I was going to take a shower and get some sleep, but I never told her about the ant stings. I did take a shower, and then I laid down on the tile floor of the bathroom because if I hadn’t I would have collapsed. Eventually, Kali came into the bathroom to see if I was alright, and I told her I was fine (which I wasn’t) and asked her to leave me alone for a while (which she did). I finally crawled into bed and slept.
I realize now that I was going into anaphylatic shock and perhaps could have died–and Kali wouldn’t have know what the hell was going on (though the stings on my legs might have given it away to emergency medical personnel). To this day I still don’t know why I behaved like “macho man,” but I probably didn’t want to go to the doctor’s office or the emergency room–which I probably should have done.
Perhaps they’re “rural legends,” but stories circulated among the working-class guys from the phosphate mines and ranches in central Florida that fire ants could kill newly born calves if they had the misfortune to be whelped into a fire ant mound. Based on my experience, I believe it’s very possible.
I don’t think I’ve ever had an encounter with fire ants. After reading your story and Scott’s story, I am very glad about that. They sound like little monsters.
Scott — I’m having trouble imagining 40 fire ant stings. It sounds like you really should have gone to the ER. I’m pretty sure Amdro is the right name for the fire ant poison, although I usually use something else. I have heard the same kind of stories about fire ants and newborn animals, including deer. I usually have a live-and-let-live attitude towards bugs, inside or out, but fire ants are one of the few bugs that I kill whenever I see them.
Robin Andrea — Unfortunately, it looks like fire ants either are or will be a problem in most of non-mountain California and possibly up the coast as well.
As Scott said, you often don’t know you’ve disturbed a fire ant nest until they’ve all crawled up you and have a little confab to sting all at once. Also, amdro. We tried a few years with that here outside of Athens. It seemed to work in the short term.
A couple of years ago we were doing firefighting training at night drafting from a nearby lake. One FF had a stationary position, and didn’t realize he was standing on a fire ant mount. We spent half an hour getting his gear off him and then trying to get the fire ants out of it.
We’ve learned that in vehicle accidents that end up with the vehicle off the road that there’s a good likelihood that the vehicle is going to be swarming with fire ants in no time.
I would agree that at least in my small area there does seem to have been some equilibrium established. Maybe it’s the armadillos – do they go after fire ant nests? I don’t know. My small area of observation may be atypical.
One thing is that that the nests really do seem to be built in very sunny areas – roadsides, pastures, lawns, but not so much once you get under a canopy.
That’s a very interesting map of fire ant movements. I can’t speak to its accuracy for our area, but certainly we’ve had them since I’ve been here in the late 1970s.
Very nice post and comments.
Well, I’m certainly glad my part of the country isn’t likely to be visited by fire ants!
Wayne — I don’t go tromping into the woods much now because all my trails are overgrown (plus we seem to be on the verge of a bad tick season), but when I did, I never saw a fire ant mound under the canopy. I hadn’t thought about wrecks being infested by fire ants, but that makes sense.
Pablo — It does look like you’re in the unlikely area. That’s one good thing about colder winters.
Yeah, maybe one fire ant bite is not as bad as one yellowjacket sting. But I’ve never been bitten only once.You fall down on a fire ant nest at age 9, you never forget it. Also, we had sugar-drunk yellowjackets all over the ground at the swimming pool when I was growing up and nobody was ever stung. Fire ants? It’s like you just look at ’em and they’re pissed off.
Ridger — I’m not sure I believe the sting intensity rating, but you’re right, lots of fire ant stings beat one little yellowjacket sting any day. And they do seem highly irritable.