Hairy, crazy ants invade from Texas to Miss.

AP (via Yahoo) ^ | ANET McCONNAUGHEY

[Mr. Mojo]

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It sounds like a horror movie: Biting ants invade by the millions. A camper's metal walls bulge from the pressure of ants nesting behind them. A circle of poison stops them for only a day, and then a fresh horde shows up, bringing babies. Stand in the yard, and in seconds ants cover your shoes. It's an extreme example of what can happen when the ants — which also can disable huge industrial plants — go unchecked. Controlling them can cost thousands of dollars. But the story is real, told by someone who's been studying ants for a decade.

"Months later, I could close my eyes and see them moving," said Joe MacGown, who curates the ant, mosquito and scarab collections at the Mississippi State Entomological Museum at Mississippi State University.

He's been back to check on the hairy crazy ants. They're still around. The occupant isn't.

The flea-sized critters are called crazy because each forager scrambles randomly at a speed that your average picnic ant, marching one by one, reaches only in video fast-forward. They're called hairy because of fuzz that, to the naked eye, makes their abdomens look less glossy than those of their slower, bigger cousins.

And they're on the move in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. In Texas, they've invaded homes and industrial complexes, urban areas and rural areas. They travel in cargo containers, hay bales, potted plants, motorcycles and moving vans. They overwhelm beehives — one Texas beekeeper was losing 100 a year in 2009. They short out industrial equipment.

If one gets electrocuted, its death releases a chemical cue to attack a threat to the colony, said Roger Gold, an entomology professor at Texas A&M.

"The other ants rush in. Before long, you have a ball of ants," he said.

[Red Badger]

In my back yard. Yes. I still have them in the front......

[Mears]

Have you used it on this type of ant?

I never heard of them but will save this info just in case.

[hadit2here]

I haven’t had these type of ants... but I used the borax/powdered sugar for some large black ants that I had for years. Cleared them up within weeks and haven’t had them come back for several years.

Doing a quick search for ‘diatomaceous earth borax crazy ants’ brings up numerous result pages, at least one of which lists “crazy ants” as being susceptible. I would think that if it works on other types of ants, that it should work on them.

I’ve kept an eye out for the black ants returning, but haven’t had to set out any borax-sugar for a couple of years- and no ants. And I live in the woods... really and literally in the woods, so much more susceptible to having ants around than any urban or suburban home.