Comments on: The Crazy Raspberry Ants are coming! The Crazy Raspberry Ants are coming!

The Crazy Raspberry Ants are coming! The Crazy Raspberry Ants are coming!

Kronos_to_Earth — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:18:01 -0800

“They’re the ant of all ants...and are moving about half a mile a year.” Crazy Raspberry Ants! (And you might want to check your computer....)

By: Nattie

Nattie — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:35:09 -0800

Around 2000 (which is earlier the earliest date I read that they have on file) some of these crazy ants showed up in the bathroom of our Houston apartment. They were INSANE. We couldn't get rid of them, but they eventually disappeared after a couple years. We couldn't figure out why they would be there, because they had no obvious source of food. I didn't connect the two at the time, but some batteries we kept in a cabinet were inexplicably ruined and leaking. The ants were quite strange and we hadn't seen anything like them before. Ant traps with poison in them did nothing. Out of desperation one day, I tried spraying them quite heavily with hair spray -- I'm talking about a puddle of it -- and it appeared to have worked. I was wrong. Hours later, well past after the hair spray had fully dried, they would start moving again. I'm not joking. Within a minute they would zip off, crazy and energetic as before. I saw a link to a video like this on CNN and it brought back memories. It's interesting to know they're considered a relatively new thing. We had just assumed they were some kind of established ant that we hadn't personally had experience with before. It's also interesting to know it's a Houston thing. Other links I dug up today... they're apparently thought to be related to a kind of Caribbean crazy ant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratrechina_species_near_pubens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_crazy_ant http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3941545.ece http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080515/ap_on_re_us/texas_ants;_ylt=Amuuu3dPi58OpMzGIOMc2Kys0NUE I bet $5 they destroy civilization as we know it. These things don't fuck around. They're like mini technophage Terminators that move really, really fast.

By: Toekneesan

Toekneesan — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:39:58 -0800

On the bright side, seems they like to eat fire ants. And those fire ants are assholes. And so far it's only Texas. Couldn't happen to a more deserving state.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:40:03 -0800

You load the nukes, I'll get the shuttle prepared for orbit.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:40:30 -0800

Also, they are "Rasberry" ants, not "Raspberry".

By: tachikaze

tachikaze — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:46:15 -0800

(I want to make an observation here but even just mentioning it offhand would be irresponsible.)

By: Mamapotomus

Mamapotomus — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:47:26 -0800

These little fuckers are in my bathroom RIGHT NOW. Reason 912 why living in Houston must be punishment for something bad I did in a past life.

By: Tube

Tube — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:51:21 -0800

They are vulnerable to some pest control poisons — Mr. Rasberry uses products containing the chemicals fipronil and chlorfenapyr Mr. Tube uses WD-40 and butane.

By: lapolla

lapolla — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:07:36 -0800

Phase IV. that is all.

By: Kronos_to_Earth

Kronos_to_Earth — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:08:09 -0800

DU, and Mr. Rasberry, Oops. *blushes*. I'm going to try to have it patched right now.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:16:27 -0800

And before Phase 4, there was Leiningen. Nighty night!

By: oaf

oaf — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:16:35 -0800

Also, they are "Rasberry" ants, not "Raspberry". The P is silent anyway.

By: empath

empath — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:22:13 -0800

The sources on this are noticeably lacking in quotes from actual scientists.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:32:12 -0800

The sources on this are noticeably lacking in quotes from actual scientists. ... They've eaten the scientists! They're already a step ahead of us!

By: found missing

found missing — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:32:22 -0800

"At the Tambopata Reserve, Terry Erwin used a bug bomb to collect all the insects from a single leguminous tree in the rain forest. I identified the ants in his sample and found 43 species in 26 genera, approximately equal to the entire ant fauna of the British Isles." EO Wilson, The Diversity of Life, 1992 "By my estimate, between 1 and 10 million billion individuals [ants] are alive at any moment, all of them weighing, to the nearest order of magnitude, as much as the totality of human beings." EO Wilson, Naturalist, 1994

By: tachikaze

tachikaze — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:41:28 -0800

social insects are terribly fascinating. I experienced quite a chill when I first conceptualized that the worker ants we see out and about are just autonomous organs of the Queen; that the Queen is the animal and her workers collectively form her extended body.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:50:05 -0800

Try isopropyl alcohol, or methanol. I discovered quite accidentally that it kills regular ants on contact.

By: subgear

subgear — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:00:39 -0800

I used to have a crazy aunt who would run all around the apartment so fast, my uncle didn't know what to do. One day she got out of the upstairs bathroom window and climbed onto the electric supply line and fried like a bug in a bug zapper. The whole block lost power for the rest of the day. I miss her now.

By: brain cloud

brain cloud — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:11:38 -0800

Holy christing shit, I think these are the same ants that are all over my damn desk at work. They are impervious to ALL COUNTERMEASURES.

By: Senator

Senator — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:12:27 -0800

Quote : " And so far it's only Texas. Couldn't happen to a more deserving state." Good point, about the only other place more deserving that comes to mind is one of the Yankee states.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:17:19 -0800

This is going to end up with gorillas freezing to death in the winter, I just know it.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:20:15 -0800

Mr. Tube uses WD-40 and butane. I use Vaseline and the words "but it's so dark in here, I can hardly see anything."

By: Mister Cheese

Mister Cheese — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:23:57 -0800

When I was in high school I would watch these ants war with the fire ants out in the back yard. They're pretty cool.

By: rokusan

rokusan — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:27:11 -0800

I first saw these little monsters in Cuba. They seemed harmless other than the crazy-ass way they run around. My girlfriend calls them 'crack ants'. Full disclosure: I, um.... I accidentally brought some back to the USA in my luggage once. They were snacking out on something in my luggage. This could all be my fault.

By: msalt

msalt — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:41:44 -0800

This was cool: And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:42:22 -0800

O great cargo ship, I thank thee for the fire ants, the tiger mosquitoes, and the rasberry ants. On top of this shipping container I sacrifice this pile of Goodyear tires in the hopes that someday you deliver a colony of hemophagic crickets from Venezuela so that I may recoil in awe of your greatness.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:50:49 -0800

Ants + MetaFilter = WIN

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:58:25 -0800

rokusan, Did you and your luggage arrive in a cargo ship in Houston in 2002? If so, you've got some 'splaining to do. On the good side, if they spread to central Texas, the ants can clear the brush on George Bush's ranch, freeing him for a career as a visionary elder statesman.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:03:18 -0800

Variants of the species found in Colombia have been known to asphyxiate chickens and even attack cattle by swarming over their eyes, nasal passages and hooves

Now, I don't want to sound alarmist, but AAAAH FUCK WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:09:48 -0800

Who knew Wikipedia had a page on killer ants?

By: M Edward

M Edward — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:43:48 -0800

Empire of the Ants I remember reading that and then learning how ants really do swarm and basically eat larger creatures from the inside out one little bit at a time. DDT works on these right? I mean, there is still hope, right? right?

By: mike3k

mike3k — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:05:13 -0800

All the little ants are marching...

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:20:59 -0800

Variants of the species found in Colombia have been known to asphyxiate chickens and even attack cattle by swarming over their eyes, nasal passages and hooves . . . do not want.

By: Lord_Pall

Lord_Pall — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:36:25 -0800

Ants that build public works are an affront to god. Down with Rasberry ants!

By: mosk

mosk — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:01:56 -0800

I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:05:45 -0800

I'll sit tight and lay down some suppressing fire...in Seattle.

By: flotson

flotson — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:49:57 -0800

Oddly enough, the recent ant visitors to our apartment (in Brooklyn) do, in fact, seem to find their way into my laptop. . .yikes. Must like the heat. . .or binary math. . . The ants are marching 2^2, hurrah!

By: skippyhacker

skippyhacker — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:34:08 -0800

This is all some kind of diversionary tactic by the cockroaches.

By: nax

nax — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:41:17 -0800

This post not safe for younger and more sensitive viewers. Dude! You gotta warn a person! (Well, I guess it was about FREAKING SCARY BUGS. Why did I open the video!)

By: Esoquo

Esoquo — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:43:50 -0800

I'd been finding spider mites in my laptop recently. Just one or two occasionally. My hard drive drive crashed two days ago and I'm now going through the painful waiting period for data extraction. I know they probably were not the cause but I'm not going to feel guilty about squishing those fuckers anymore.

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:04:07 -0800

Why do I think this is going to be some hideous insect-only variation on "there was an old lady who swallowed a spider"? So the fire ants were done in by the crazy ants, which required Bolivian ant beetles, which threatened crops, so Equadorian giant wasps were imported, which eventually...etc., etc. This is going to end with North America covered three foot deep in those horrible giant bat-eating centipedes. Stephen King's "The Mist" is going to look like a story about a petting zoo before this is over, mark my words.

By: gfrobe

gfrobe — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:42:20 -0800

No sign of them yet in London. Quick, someone close down that transatlantic tunnel!

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:30:12 -0800

And there I was hoping they were going to be bright pink or purple or something...

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sat, 17 May 2008 04:21:47 -0800

...the only other place more deserving that comes to mind is one of the Yankee states. But which one? Can it be -- yes, it must be -- the one that keeps the Yankees!

By: Faze

Faze — Sat, 17 May 2008 04:51:15 -0800

Let's see: no water, blistering hot summers, the need for constant air conditioning, and now the threat of being eaten from the inside out by miserable little ant swarms. Why do people live in the South while America's magnificent Great Plains sit empty? North Dakota and South Dakota undergo a great sterilization by cold every winter, which keeps this sort of tropical extremism at bay. Oh yes, and hurricanes. Why do you people put up with that?

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sat, 17 May 2008 05:09:26 -0800

I believe the hurricanes help promote biodiversity, and scrub off some of the spilled crude oil.

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Sat, 17 May 2008 06:22:43 -0800

I have a solution. An adorable solution.

By: workinggringa

workinggringa — Sat, 17 May 2008 06:57:11 -0800

i guess its just a matter of time before they get to the Yucatan... they can join the at-least-ten different kind of ants that we rent our house from already...

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:01:47 -0800

I've got an old bottle of this stuff. It's a cleaning fluid, not an insecticide, but damned if it doesn't kill anything I spray with it. Ants shrivel up and die, wasps on the wing plummet to the ground. It's completely non-toxic around people and pets, too. Highly recommended.

By: ob

ob — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:56:11 -0800

I heard it was the Russians

By: gngstrMNKY

gngstrMNKY — Sat, 17 May 2008 09:36:16 -0800

Ants being attracted to electromagnetic fields isn't unique to this species, but they may be more fond of them than most. A couple of years ago I returned home to find a procession of ants leading down my hallway, into my spare bedroom, and right into an old Cisco Catalyst. Many of them were carrying eggs. I unplugged the switch, threw it in the freezer, and vacuumed up as many as I could.

By: doctorschlock

doctorschlock — Sat, 17 May 2008 10:04:00 -0800

Hmmmm! Are they edible?

By: FunkyHelix

FunkyHelix — Sat, 17 May 2008 10:54:31 -0800

Holy crap, imma move into a bubble with a couch and a tv. Then when I miss nature, I can turn on the Discovery and Nature channels and remind myself why I live in a bubble.

By: hortense

hortense — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:19:18 -0800

Pua and Stewie - The Anteaters

By: patrick rhett

patrick rhett — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:01:03 -0800

the need for constant air conditioning According to the new Wired, cooling a home in Arizona produces 93% fewer CO2 emissions than warming a house in New England. So... you're welcome.

By: nax

nax — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:34:47 -0800

Countess Elena, if it takes as long to eat the ants as it took to load, we're in trouble.

By: Lesser Shrew

Lesser Shrew — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:57:03 -0800

Where is Leiningen when we need him most?

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:43:13 -0800

Oh no! Agricultural nightmare!! Look out for the terrible shortage of, um, what? Lawn clippings?