FireRANT

What in the name of Crocodile Dundee is going on in Australia?  Here's a fun challenge.  Type "Fire Ant Control Centre" into a search engine, such as Google.  Check out the first listing.  This is inded the Fire Ant Control Centre we referenced in our last post...but it's advising people not to mail them live fire ants.  Just thought that was kind of funny.

Since our blog software is kind of lame, we can't post a screenshot.  We're going to be moving hosts soon, so we'll keep you up to date on that.  

We are very excited about the warm summer ahead and pleasantly surprised with the mild winter that pasted.  But when all said and done, what does this mean for invasive species?

According to Australia's Courier-Mail, a warmer winter means more fire ants down under.  The warm, dry winter is preserving fire ants and giving them the means to make it through a season that is traditionally difficult for fire ants:

Dry conditions mean the exotic pest can burrow more than 10m down in search of moisture, making detection more difficult.

If you see one fire ant, beware, because where’s there’s one, there are bound to be many, many more.  Think about it: 10 meters is close to 32 feet!  If in fact fire ants are living more than 10 meters below the surface, the actual amount of fire ants nesting in one mound is endless.  A colony can number in the millions.

According to Jenny Bibo, community engagement manager of Australia’s Fire Ant Control Centre, fire ants are"on the downward trend but there is still a tail – ants are still out there to be found.” 

We can take this research and use it here in the States.  With neighborhood programs we have the opportunity to take these pests by storm.  Working on one home at a time will only help the problem sort term.

But we want to pose a question: Are fire ants on a downward spiral here in America?  Our bet is no.  What have you seen in your yards or labs?

The Associated Press had an impressive story today about a naturally occurring disease that knocks out fire ants. The virus, known as SINV-1, is said to be able to wipe out a colony of fire ants in three months.

The AP notes,

"Although it occurs naturally in fire ants, the virus needs a stressor before it becomes deadly and begins replicating within a colony, Valles said.

Integrating the virus into ant baits could offer a tool to the pest-control industry, agricultural producers and harvesters, consumers and others for whom fire ants are a persistent problem."

It doesn't talk about what type of stressor will set off the virus, nor does it mention how the bug attacks the...bugs. We know that ingredients like fipronil render fire ants' nervous systems useless, and indoxacarb does a similar job. The most interesting development of this whole thing is the potential to infuse the virus into a fire ant killer product.

No doubt it will take some time to develop that, since the USDA has known about SINV-1 for five years now. Until then, there's always the Two-Step.

After reading about Texas trying to fight fire ants with a natural predator, I thought it only fair to do a little research myself.

There are natural ways to kill fire ants, but neither has been practiced to their full extent.  Thelohania is a microbial pathogen which affects the queen the most.  The abdomen of the queen becomes smaller and develops cysts, which causes fewer eggs.  A diseased colony becomes weak and cannot fend off other colonies.  The great thing about other colonies taking over is that they too become diseased.  However, this practice does not happen on a large scale.  There are quite a few places in the South that have put into practice the use of thelohania.  For more information, go to http://fireant.ifas.ufl.edu/disease.htm.

The second natural killer of fire ants is the phorid fly.  The female phorid fly injects an egg into the head of a fire ant and 10 days later the egg hatches.  Once hatched, the phorid fly eats the inside of the fire ant and the head of the fire ant falls off.  So one phorid fly takes out one fire ant. 

The long term effect is that fire ants become worried about phorid flies so the fire ant no longer forages for food as much; thus causing a dwindling colony.  The problem with this is that the phorid fly is only efficient in South America because of the number of species of phorid flies.  In the United States, we have too few species of phorid fly and they have not yet been effective.  For more information on the phorid fly and its use as a natural predator, check out http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gilbert/research/fireants/fireant.html.

So with Texas looking to invest in phorid flies, I can only hope they are looking to import a wide variety of phorid flies in order to have any effect on our own imported fire ants.  And if you’re not a phorid fly farmer, your best bet is to treat with a fire ant killer in tandem with your neighbors.  Try the Over ‘n Out Two-Step Method to help you with these pesky insects.  It’s a proven combination, using a fast-acting individual mound treatment, followed by a sweeping broadcast treatment.  More later!