Fire Ants: Insect I.D.

Fire ants range in color from red to dark brown and vary in size from 1/8-inch to 1/3-inch long, advised Frank Womack, agrostologist, Greensmiths.com, Frisco, Texas.

Queen ants are egg-laying machines that can produce more than 1,000 eggs
daily and live for more than two years unless food is limited. Though most
mounds have only one queen, multiple-queen mounds do exist and can house as many as 500,000 ants.

During the spring and summer, winged males and females leave the mound and
mate in the air, Womack explained. “After mating, males die and females become queens and can fly as far as 10 miles from the parent colony, however, most queens descend to the ground within much shorter distances,” he said. “Only a very small percentage of queens survive after landing. If a queen survives, she sheds her wings, burrows into the ground and lays eggs to begin a new colony. Then, in the late fall, many small colonies of fire ants will appear.”

The mating flight is one way fire ants infest previously uninfested or untreated areas. Another way is by splitting up the colony or moving the colony after it has been disturbed, Hooper-Bui remarked. Fire ants also move by means of plant material shipments, Womack added. “Mounds discovered in previously uninfested areas frequently can be traced to landscaping performed at commercial and industrial developments,” he explained.

The author is Managing Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at nwisniewski@lawnandlandscape.com.