A Plague of Ants

Looks like another import causing problems here in SE Texas.

A Plague of Ants in Houston – The Lede – Breaking News – New York Times Blog
As recently as Wednesday, all was well in Houston, at least according to the papers. But today, a story resembling “a really low-budget horror film” is playing out there, with billions of monsters (tiny ones) spreading in a “crazy” (or astonishingly organized) way with a killer instinct (for other ants, and oddly, for electronic equipment).

Two spine-tingling reports, from The Houston Chronicle and The Associated Press, leave no gory detail unarticulated about the city’s suddenly immense problem with ants.

Finally, a natural disaster with a payback…

Against all the odds, therein lies the good news (of sorts) for Houston: If the Raspberry ants succeed as well as their cousins did in Biosphere 2, they will wipe out the city’s population of fire ants, or as the A.P. calls them, “the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.”

While the new ants will also bite humans, it reportedly doesn’t hurt nearly as much as a fire ant bite. So, despite the scary headlines, the crazy Raspberry may wind up being an unlikely hero — or at least, the lesser of two evil ants.

Gary Boyd

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