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Fire ants are a pest in the southern United States, but are unable to live further north. In the North, black ants are the pest. So, if homeowners in the North were to have a fire ant colony sent to them from the South, and were to plant it in their lawn, they would see the fire ants overrun their
entire yard, wiping out black ants and I assume any other hive insects like bees and termites as well. Then when the winter came, the fire ant colony would perish, leaving the homeowner with an ant free lawn the following spring.
They adapt to cold
http://www.ceris.pu...ws01/020528-ifa.txt
Almost as horrible as the page text formatting [thumbwax, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
Fire ant bite
http://hardinmd.lib...tamu/fireants7.html
Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark. [notmrjohn, May 01 2012]
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Annotation:
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I'm so tempted to give this a croissant right now, because at first glance, it seems like such a novel and cool idea. However, I'm equally worried about the implications of accidentally creating a climate-resistant strain of fire ants. I don't doubt that it would happen, either -- so I'm neutral on this one. |
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I'm not, I love ants, bring on the leaf cutters too!!! No more raking leaves. Muwahahahaahaha Tasty Croissant for the ant guy. |
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I've seen black ants in pretty hot climates, I'm not sure it's ever too warm for them. But it's too cold for either in the Arctic tundra, I bet. |
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This is a fine idea, and in the book Common Sense Pest Control, the author describes using this method against termites in his basement. He relocated a fire ant colony near the base of a termite colony infesting his basement. The fire ants entered the termite colony and systematically killed them off. |
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I have read a little bit on the impact of fire ants on cotton farms. There are many pests of cotton. In fields infested with fire ants, the ants scour the plants, picking off caterpillars and scale insects. They will even eat into the stalk and extract burrowers. With the ants apparently come an explosion in the spider population - the ants cannot enter webs to get the spiders, and the spiders increase their numbers by feeding on the readily available ants. Thus the flying insect pests which can escape the ants run into the spiders. |
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This on fire ants and cotton is from the unlinkable work of one R Breene, an entomologist in Texas. |
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Sure glad I'm not a cotton picker. I hear it's hard enough work, as it is, much moreso when you're fighting an errant swarm of fire ants, I'd imagine. |
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Try hoeing weeds in 300 acres of cotton by your elf each summer. Loads of fun. |
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That's one step removed from "I know, let's release swarms of Africanised bees to control the North American bee population. After all, Europe is connected to Africa and we don't get Africanised bees that far North." |
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Twax, you should just make your damn elf do the hoeing. Why even hang out with an elf if its not going to pitch in? |
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I thought this totally bogus until reading the reviews. Set a pest to catch a pest.
Here in HI, we have made many mistakes in that area. Someone brought in Mongooses to control the rat population. But mongooses are day creatures, while rats patrol the night. Nobody checked it out. So, the mongooses prey on birds and the lunches of golfers. The rats couldn't care less.
Insects mutate rapidly, and I'd fear a cold resistant fire ant strain developing.
Check with Michael Critchan before f*cking with Mother Nature.
Still a (+) :-) |
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