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WHOA!!!


Our ants aren't that cool looking!!!


The ants go marching one by one...hurrah...hurrah...




[hr width='40%'][font color="#000080"]"I know that you are something special, To you I'd be always faithful
I want to be what you always needed, Then I hope you'll see the heart in me"[/font]

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

I know how painful fire ants are... One time when I was a little kid playing outside in Louisiana, they swarmed up my leg to the knee and were stinging. That was probably the most painful memory I have, and now I hate the bastards even more.

Good thing we don't have them in California, or at least Northern California.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Fire ants are now here in Oz. Up North near Brisbane they are becoming a real problem.

The south eastern states all spend millions each yr trying to keep the fire ant population under control.

They are nasty little buggers. We even resorted to burning the nests with gas.

When I was a child, the neighbor kid and I were playing hide n seek. He hid under a canoe. Come to find out there was a nest under it the size of the little boat.

The boy was stunge all over his body and almost died from it.

It appeared that they swarmed on him, and then all stung at once.

I can still remember the look on his dad's face as he was trying to wash the ants off the boy with a hose.

PLace Your Bets Babel

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Between that ant, ant that spider you posted pics of ages ago...who wins .

^_^




[hr width='40%']"There’s an emptiness inside her. And she’d do anything to fill it in.
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now. It's more like cold blue ice in her heart.
She feels like kicking out all the windows. And setting fire to this life."

The nasty part about fire ants is that they swarm all over you en masse, then send out a synchronising chemical pheromone and sting you all at once.

They also colonise by crowding onto floating debris during a flood, then disembark onto the nearest solid object they come into contact with. If that object happens to be your leg, you are in deep trouble.

They are ferociously aggressive colonisers, and do not know the meaning of the word fear. But then, when you produce caustic chemical weapons in industrial batch quantities like they do, you don't need a fear instinct.

In some parts of the States, they're a sort of insect version of the Borg.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I played around with the fire ants when visiting relatives in the Clearwater, FL area.

I would find a nest along side the road I was walking and would use a long stick to tap the ground around the nest. You should have seen how fast those suckers came out and attacked the stick, which I promptly dropped

Gosh that was fun :%)

My uncle got bit up good by them when cutting grass. They crawled up his leg quietly and when bunches of them were up his leg, apparently one signals the others and they all begin biting at once. He's a big man and he went running and went down. He was really messed up and said that kind of pain was like nothing he had experienced.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 01-Mar-2005 10:21

Fire ants are an introduced species in the US as well, so I don't feel bad when I blow up their nests with firecrackers. Now that's fun.

They are originally native to South America.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

An I thought some of our carpenter ants were bad boys. That thing is scary

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

yes, fire ants are *nasty* little creatures. ]:| one of the only ant species that will kill for food from what i understand all i know is that the only way to kill them is to either burn them or freeze them, although putting a shovel full of one mound onto another one is good entertainment, provided you are far enough away that they don't go after you too

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

Those American ants. Are they Fire Ants? Only their stings are vicious.

And, to make matters worse, some idiot has introduced them into Queensland.

Solenopsis Fire Ants In QLD

I love the bit at the end where the Queensland government advises people what to do about them, including sending samples to be analysed, and includes in bold type the words DO NOT SEND LIVE ANTS.

Last edited by Calilasseia at 01-Mar-2005 08:15

Last edited by Calilasseia at 01-Mar-2005 08:15

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Ahhhh...Australia, the land of things that bite. We have Mosquito's here that are that big they need clearance from air traffic control before they land!

It's not the jaws on bulldog ants that you have to worry about, it's the stinger on their a$s that hurts.

Most insect stings (bee's, wasps etc) don't usually effect me, but these ants actually leave a lump on me for an hour or so.

I have blackants all over my house, i have 4 sugar ant nests in the garden, and now, NOW i find this wandering around on my tank!!

I reckon this house is built on a giant ant headquarters.

Callatya attached this image:


For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Man, look at the jaws on that thing.

How big are they?

Mike

Bulldog Ants

The Tyrannosaurus Rex of the ant world.

NOT to be messed with.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I have said in the past that we're lucky these things aren't bigger than they are because they actually want to EAT us They don't bite to save themselves, the little blighters crawl over you and start munching away

They can be a good sign of rain on it's way as well

funny i have found an ant, or 2, or 3..... crawling on the edge of my tank hmm, u want to see ants? next summer i will photograph the trees out front, the red ants gaurd these with their life, i found like balls of them keeping a stalk together!

Look at those choppers!!!

Giant Ants - only in Australia

Really interesting read, Cali. By the sounds of that article, you don't want to get bitten by the bugger.

Which dot are you in that Map, Callatya?

I actually like Ants - at least, some. I use to sit for hours on the cement and just watch them come in and out of their holes. I loved when a big ant war was on and millions of them were all over in one spot battling it out. Leafcutters are cool to watch too. Only seen them in a science musuem, behind some glass.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 28-Feb-2005 21:54