Was really hoping the guyās name was Leiningen.
What about one of these guys?
Warning, you are unprepared for the cute.
I wonder if their alleged electrical sensitivity could be used against them?
Itās clearly a problem if they are building up in masses inside electrical equipment not designed to be filled with ants; but Iād imagine that designing a bug-zapper style system that puts off a very zesty electromagnetic field; but is also resistant to fouling by tiny electro-roasted ant corpses could thin their ranks with brutal efficiencyā¦
Given that putting high-voltage devices (eg. UV sterilizers in air ducts) in maintenance shafts of various sorts is already done, some sort of combination attractant/deathcorecharnelslaughtermachine barrier at ingress points seems like a self evidently excellent idea, certain not to void your fire insurance!
They could clean the dust out of the vents at the same timeā¦
Iām just disturbed that someone would measure ants in pints. I could go with pounds, or (preferably) kilos, yes. Pints? This tells me nothing useful about the density of ants, and therefore whether there were many many little ones or just a few humongous fat ones. Living things by volume, just wrong; by weight or mass, conceivable, surely?!
Beats counting them.
I think that by the time youāve got enough ants to be able to measure them by multiple pints, the actual numbers are almost irrelevant.
Even with the big inch-long bull ants we get round here, 1 pint of ants = too damned many.
We have them in FL - first saw them over near Tampa. They ate the speaker module out of my GPS.
Cleaned them up, left Tampa. A few months later, I returned, and there they were again.
I had that same idea about them being attracted to electrical fields, but when I tried it, couldnāt seem to attract them.
Another idea was that they are attracted to the heat generated. They seem to go after specific pieces of electronic equipment, even when there may be multiple items around. But, once they find something they ālikeā, theyāll stay put even when itās turned off for long periods. They headed for my GPS unit each time I got them, and nothing else.
This makes me think there are some materials inside that they prefer to eat. Very likely an adhesive, since I found them eating the duct tape off of some cardboard. And, they went after that GPA unit whether I plugged it in indoors, or out.
I do have a fix for them, once you have them, though. Take whatever they crawled into, put it in a plastic bag. Stick the bag in the freezer for a while. You might have to take the cover off and blow the dead ant bodies out of it, but itāll kill 'em. Iād imagine a similar fix might be hacked together to get them out of ducts and walls, too.
The ants are weird and fascinating, but the story told by the exterminator is all wrong. Hereās a more nuanced perspective: http://www.myrmecos.net/2013/12/06/crazy-ants-the-new-york-times-and-the-failure-of-americans-to-support-basic-research/
It doesnāt explain why they pick a target in the first place; but I suspect that, once they do, they (either deliberately, or in death) hose the thing down with signal pheremones nice and thoroughly, ensuring that their swarm mates will be all over it until the traces finally dissipate, which can take a while.
Though, if they are doing that, pheremone baits would be another option. We did a little experiment in BIO, some years back, with a species of termite whose trail-forming pheremone apparently has close chemical similarity to an ingredient in the ink of cheap bic ballpoints: Just draw some lines, and the termite would obediently go all line-following-robot on them, regardless of how purposeless the pattern. Probably what it feels like to be in advertising, on a smaller scale.
Pheromones are also a possibility, of course. Iād certainly expect any other ants to follow an old trail. And, itās not like youād wash electronics down afterward.
Although that still doesnāt explain why they choose electronics in the first place - unless something in there smells like ant goodies to them. What got me in the first place was them choosing that one item when there was other stuff to choose from. I mustāve gotten 40 ants out of that one unit each time. Theyāre very tiny compared to carpenter ants or fire ants, and lighter in color.
I made a third trip over to that area, and they left the GPS and everything else alone - but it was a new house and had been gone over by a pest control person repeatedly before I ever arrived.
Canāt explain them eating the duct tape adhesive at all. Must have something sweet in it? They absolutely decimated it, though! If I wanted to trap some of them, Iād try that way.
Cockroaches do the same thing. At one point I worked on a Polish ship that was very infested with roaches. My tape player stopped working and I opened the back to find hundreds of the little bastards. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it even 20 years later.
Pints have long been the preferred measure for maggots sold as bait. Anyone fancy going halves on a pint of ādisco maggotsā?
A species of ants attracted to electrical fields? Sounds like theyāre just begging to be weaponized. I wonder how theyād stand up to the radiation in an Iranian nuclear fuel plant?
LOL - just as I saw this post, I started hearing this weird o-scope noise. Sounded like an old scifi movie or something. Turns out, itās a contractor looking for an underground pipe with a loud metal detector. Freaky thought ensues:
if these things are drawn to electromagnetic fields somehow, then they should probably have some amount of iron content in their teeny leetle bodies, right? If correct (or maybe even if not) - they can totally be screwed with using magnets. Even better - electromagnets?! Just the thought of itā¦
Ahhh. Love!
Does anybody here have access to a decent university library or other institutional subscription?
Iāve found references to āPremiers rĆ©sultats dāune irradiation prolongĆ©e au cĆ©sium sur les populations de fourmis en Haute Provenceā by Le Masne and Bonavita-Cougourdan, published 1972; but Iāll be damned if I can find a copy online.
Our Google Overlords know about it; but no ebook for you.
Earlier this year BB covered a researcher using magnets to screw around with ants by painting them with magnetic paint. http://boingboing.net/2013/01/30/why-put-magnetic-paint-on-ants.html
Someone has also been researching natural magnetoreception in insects as well. http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Author/35848238/j-f-de-oliveira
