Like something out of the film Phase IV, the crazy raspberry ant is wreaking havoc in Texas, disrupting electronics and defying all attempts to eradicate them.

Properly called Paratrechina pubens, the flea-sized “crazy ant” has spread throughout the Houston area since their accidental introduction to Texas in 2002. They are now spread too widely to be eradicated, according to a Texas A&M entomologist. Though they don’t ‘sting’, the ants will bite people and - for reasons unknown - have a tendency to invade and disrupt electrical devices like computers, alarms and electrical sockets.

Apart from being technophiles, the ants appear to be immune to the standard range of domestic insecticides. The ants also typically form supercolonies with multiple queens and may number many millions of individuals, which makes their tendency to swarm with the onset of warm weather all the more disconcerting. Professional exterminators have also been frustrated, both by the ants’ reluctance to to take the poisons used in ‘bait traps’, and by their behaviour of piling up their dead to form bridges across areas treated with a surface insecticide. They have called on the EPA to allow the use of more powerful pesticides as an emergency measure. The EPA is currently working with the Texas DOA and A&M University to find a way to stop the ants.

But it’s not all bad news, as well as hatchlings, ladybirds and crop plants, the crazy ant also eats fire ants.

“Well I for one welcome our new insect overlords!“

Does this mean we’ll all be either killed or transformed into ants now?

Are we sure these aren’t genetically engineered, packed with nanobots and invading our computers to send vital information like our Sudoku scores back to their makers?

I was supposed to post it but i cant get these ants out of my computer…..

Transfrmr - 15 May 2008 07:32 AM

Are we sure these aren’t genetically engineered, packed with nanobots and invading our computers to send vital information like our Sudoku scores back to their makers?

You mean in an attempt to either:

A) Identify the most intelligent people so that they can be gruesomely dispatched first, depriving the human race of its best chance to fight back?

or,

B) Find a cadre of smart, nerdy people who will collaborate in the subjugation of the entire population in return for unfettered (or should that be ‘fettered’?) access to the best-looking members of the opposite sex?

*crosses fingers and hopes it’s (B)*

The Museum of Hoaxes welcomes our new ant overlords!

they are just like people!

David B. - 15 May 2008 07:59 AM

Transfrmr - 15 May 2008 07:32 AM

Are we sure these aren’t genetically engineered, packed with nanobots and invading our computers to send vital information like our Sudoku scores back to their makers?

You mean in an attempt to either:

A) Identify the most intelligent people so that they can be gruesomely dispatched first, depriving the human race of its best chance to fight back?

or,

B) Find a cadre of smart, nerdy people who will collaborate in the subjugation of the entire population in return for unfettered (or should that be ‘fettered’?) access to the best-looking members of the opposite sex?

*crosses fingers and hopes it’s (B)*

*hopes it’s (B) too*
I don’t want to be gruesomely dispatched.

I think they are in my cat’s food dish here in Louisiana.

MadCarlotta - 15 May 2008 10:30 AM

they are just like people!

*tilts head*
What are they doing?
*blinks*

“Oh yeah…oh yeah…MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A QUEEN ANT!!!“

“I swear it’ll last a whole song this time! Hnng…“

Why B? Ants are n`t that scary just make your own flamethrower….It kills AND burns AND cooks