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they look like nothing more than a group of ants hanging out.
Around human structures, they nest anywhere from potted plants
to piles of mulch, and even underneath doormats. Colonies can
have anywhere from a few dozen workers to a few thousand, and
those workers can live in one big nest or many small ones.
The Asian needle ant’s distinctive walk is a dead giveaway of its
identity. While some ant species lift their legs high and prance
around or stomp their way to and from their nests, Asian needle
ants hunker down close to the ground and creep with deliberate,
stealthy steps. Like ninjas, they move alone; they never follow the
trails of their sisters, they don’t know how.
It’s easy to confuse Asian needle ants with wood ants, as both
are medium-to-large and black, but one distinguishing
characteristic separates Asian needle ants from wood ants (and
ninjas, for that matter): They are clumsy and terrible climbers. If
you trap an Asian needle ant in a glass jar, she won’t be able to
climb to the top like other ant species and will instead wander
helplessly around the bottom of the jar or run in place like a
startled cartoon character. Be careful if you try that trick because
Asian needle ants can sting the tar out of you.
experiencing it for myself. The day the first sting happened, I was
digging around with bare hands into a log I hoped was infested
with them. It was. As I reached into the log to pull off a chunk of
wood, I accidentally closed my hand on an Asian needle ant nest.
A startled worker stung my palm. Because I had read that two-tofour
times as many people are allergic to Asian needle ant venom
than are allergic to honey bee stings, my alarm seemed justified.
Based on those reports, I was afraid my hand might fall off, but
nothing like that happened.
At first, I felt a slight burning sensation right where she stung me.
About an hour later, the burn spread out to an area about the size
of a quarter around the sting, and it began to feel a little like being
stabbed with pins. This flash of sharp pain followed by a dull
nerve ache continued for the next two weeks every time I touched
A Stinging Sensation
As an entomologist who spends a lot of time studying Asian
needle ants, I’d heard of the horrors of their sting prior to
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