Biology of Fire Ants
If you live in the Southwestern States, probably the last thing that you want to hear is someone telling you to try and understand fire ants. These nasty little introduced species spread a lot of misery wherever they occur, and the last thing you want to do is sit down and have a chat with the group to find out what makes them so mean.
Fortunately, that is not what we mean by understanding, and we are not advocating the place of the fire ant within the ecosystem at large. In fact as an introduced species fire ants are one of the few insect pests that we would happily disappear from our borders forever. Unfortunately, like so many insect pests, fire ants are very resistant to toxic, broad based control strategies, so the best we can do is to use an integrated pest management control plan to keep the species as minimal as possible.
At its heart, an IPC plan includes gaining a knowledge of the pest in question. Understanding diets, physical characteristics, and reproductive cycles of various pests can greatly assist us in devising strategies for control which are not toxic to us or other, potentially beneficial organisms. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the fire ant.
The fire ant and its appearance
Fire ants appear much the same as other ants, with a segmented body terminating in a large abdomen. They are usually reddish in color, although as we indicate below they can also be black. They are generally much larger than other types of ants.
There are four different species of fire ant found in the US. Two of these, the Southern Fire Ant and the Tropical Fire Ant, are native to the country, but the two worst, the black and the red, are introduced and have spread quite profusely.
What sets fire ants apart from other ants is that instead of using their jaws to bite a victim and then spraying acid, they actually inject a painful toxin into their victims after getting a grip with their jaws.
Fire ant diet
Fire ants prefer to eat wheat, corn and sorghum as well as cotton and soybean seeds, but they are like most ants opportunistic and will eat whatever they can find, or kill. Swarming is not uncommon and with their venom they can create meals out of much larger animals.
Fire ant living habits
Fire ants prefer to make their mounds in areas that are located in the open sun. These mounds extend very far under the ground, and can be up to a foot and a half high. They particularly seem to enjoy living in areas that have been disturbed by humans, such as pastures, lawns, oil fields, and on the sides of roads.
Life cycles
Fire ants have a life cycle that is common to other ant species, but being found mostly in the southern warm regions of the country the colony will continue to grow until the queen dies (which may take up to seven years!). Once a year fire ants take to the air to form new colonies; the mound is the basic structure from which all of the ants’ activities take place.