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and-sniff will tell me whether she has little
black ants (about half the size of a sesame
seed) or odorous house ants (a little bigger
than a sesame seed).
SGF: “It smells ... it smells good! It smells!”
Like most people with ants, Sarah’s grandmother’s friend has
odorous house ants partying in her kitchen. Their telltale smell
gives them away. She’s a lucky lady. Neither dirty nor dangerous,
this top home pest—sometimes known as the sugar ant—can
provide hours of entertainment for anyone willing to share space
with them. Follow them home to see how they bunk! Put out food
and see how long it takes them to find it! Lay an E.T. trail of
snacks to shift their ant highways! Possibilities for fun abound.
Country Ant, City Ant
Even though odorous house ants pester people around the
country, unlike some ant pests like red imported fire ants and
Argentine ants, odorous house ants are home-grown U.S. natives.
Named for a defensive odor they emit from their rumps that some
describe as “spoiled coconut suntan lotion,” they nest in natural
environments like the woods or pretty much any manmade locale
like potted plants, under doormats, or in cars. As with Aesop’s
country mouse and city mouse, “country” odorous house ants
(those living in natural, wooded areas) and “city” ants (those living
in manmade environments) lead different lifestyles.
In the country, odorous house ants play an important role keeping
the earth a clean, green machine. They work in concert with other
forest bugs to keep canopies healthy and ensure a proper
ecological balance with plenty of species hanging around. They
also help accelerate decomposition and promote nutrient flow by
eating dead insects and animals and nesting in and under rotting
wood, acorns, and in abandoned insect homes.
Yes, out in the country, they live the quiet life and have small
colonies of a few hundred to a couple thousand workers. But
once they move into cities, odorous house ants go a little wild.
Their populations explode, sometimes spanning entire city
blocks, and they blanket lawns and kitchen counters with greedy
scouts sniffing around for a sugar fix.
When we build cities such as New York, we also build the perfect
environment for odorous house ants to go berserk. First, it’s easy
for them to find a job to help support their city lifestyle. Plenty of
ant employers looking for work (a.k.a. scale insects and aphids)
await in the trees we plant to line our neighborhoods’ streets.
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