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CRAZY RASPBERRY ANTS
(I'm feeling OH GREAT)
DALLAS (AP) -- In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.
The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" - crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.
"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."
The ants - formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" - have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.
As if giant snakes weren't enough. Now we have a crazy ant spreading across the country from Texas. It has appearently spread across five counties. Good news, they feed on fire ants. Bad news, they love electronics. Regular pestacides don't work. They pile up their dead for safe passage over sprayed areas. As usual with feral species they have no natural predator to keep them in check. They have multiple queens in one colony, so it is not enough just to kill one queen. They are coming out in the billions now that warmer weather is setting in. That's a lot of bad to good ratio. Well scientist's are working on it. Until then, summer out look is a lot of ants.
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