Fire Ant Foes in the News

Nobody likes fire ants. That is a sweeping generalization, but it’s certainly one that most would agree with. So anything that takes on the stinging pest successfully tends to make the news.

Consider a recent story about a new hero in the battle against fire ants in Australia. It is man's best friend - the dog. The Queensland Times ran a story in mid-August about Aker, a golden retriever who is sniffing out new infestations of fire ants in Australia. He is specially trained to smell the chemicals called pheromones that fire ants use to communicate with each other. Once Aker finds a colony, officials from the Queensland government destroy the colony. The story notes that Aker has been so successful in finding fire ants that two new canine recruits, Mikey and Elroy, are being trained in the science of sniffing out fire ants. Fire ants have only recently invaded Australia. The Australians are making a great effort to eradicate new colonies when they are found.

Dr. Kathy Flanders, an entomologist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and Auburn University professor says that it is too late to eradicate imported fire ants from the main infested area in the United States, which ranges from the Southeast westward to parts of Texas and Oklahoma. To learn why, visit eXtension.org’s Imported Fire Ant FAQ.

Meanwhile, the decapitating fly, also called the phorid fly, continues to grab headlines in the United States. An editorial in the Virginia Pilot newspaper dubs those who study the flies as the Tony Sopranos of entomologists. Flanders says that her Auburn colleague Dr. Lawrence Graham and Dr. Sanford Porter of USDA’s Agricultural Research Service are far more mellow than the HBO organized crime character, but both have a lot of respect for the tiny fly that can “rub” out fire ants.

Phorid flies lay their eggs in fire ants. The larvae make their way into the ants' heads and proceed to eat them from the inside out. Soon, the heads of the fire ants fall off, and a new generation of tiny flies emerge to look for more fire ants. Several species of phorid flies that attack imported fire ants can now be found in the main fire ant infested area of the United States. For more information about phorid flies, search the imported fire ant eXtension Web site.

Posted by lawremc at August 21, 2008 02:25 PM | TrackBack