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Once they move in, they gobble up all the food and make lots of
babies, eventually taking resources from other ant species and
amassing huge worker populations. By now, we all know that our
native ants do many good deeds for our environment, from
engineering the soil to keeping tree canopies healthy to planting
our wild herb seeds. Suppose a crazy ant like a yellow-footed ant
moved in and took all of the homesteads from our native ants or
ate all their food? What would happen to our homegrown heroes?
And what about the jobs they do? Many times, invasive species
like yellow-footed ants spell trouble for our natural world.
But yellow-footed ants are just the tip of the iceberg of crazy in
Nylanderia world. Raspberry crazy ants, named for the
exterminator who discovered them, Tom Raspberry, take
outrageous ant behavior to a whole new level.
Raspberry crazy ants originally come from Brazil and Argentina
but made a homestead in Houston, Texas, a few years ago. Just
like yellow-footed ants, they began to scarf down all the ant food
they could find, turning that ant food into ant babies. Lots and
lots of ant babies. In some places, Raspberry crazy ants became
so numerous they overran human structures.
They can reach such huge populations that they become more
than a nuisance for humans; they become real trouble. Raspberry
crazy ants, like their crazy ant cousins, nest in all kinds of
crannies, and electrical boxes make perfect crannies for them. If a
worker gets zapped in an electrical box, she’ll release a “Danger!”
A Raspberry crazy ant, the craziest of the crazies. - © Alex Wild
odor, called an alarm pheromone, which alerts her sisters that
she’s in need of assistance. Her sisters will pour in en masse and
flood the box, shorting out electrical equipment. The more that
get zapped, the bigger the danger odor and the more ants pour
in. It’s not unusual for people in the Southwestern United States
to open electrical boxes and find them packed with tens of
thousands of electrocuted ants.
Crazy ants also get a case of the hangries. When these ladies get
low on sugar, they become super aggressive and start swinging
punches at anybody within reach. Like all Nylanderia, these
bizarre trespassers can’t sting, but they build up such
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