Alien 'crazy ants' invading southern U.S. because of dirty New Orleans niggers.

[Too_Many_Tools]

Damned niggers. Can't keep anything clean.

An invasion of alien "crazy ants" is making many residents of
the U.S. Gulf Coast long for the old days of pesky, biting fire
ants.

Like fire ants, these South American invaders seem to be fond of
electrical equipment. But unlike their stinging red
counterparts, the tawny crazy ants create mega-colonies,
sometimes in homes, and push out local populations of ants and
arthropods, a University of Texas researcher warns.

Here�s a bit of the behavior that earns the "crazy ant" name.

"When you talk to folks who live in the invaded areas, they tell
you they want their fire ants back," said Ed LeBrun, a
researcher at the University of Texas� invasive species research
program. "Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in
your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only
interact with you if you step on their mound."

Native to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, tawny crazy
ants, or Nylanderia fulva, were discovered in a Houston suburb
by a pest control worker in 2002. Populations since have fanned
out through Texas and the Gulf Coast region as far as Florida,
where 20 counties have active colonies, according to LeBrun, who
published a study of the invasion in the aptly named journal
Biological Invasions.

LeBrun believes the ants came to the U.S. through the Port of
New Orleans. That�s how the Argentine ant got here in 1891; the
black fire ant was first found near the port of Mobile, Ala., in
1918, and in the 1930s, the well-known and despised red fire ant
showed up, pushing out the black fire and Argentine ants.

The ants' habit of colonial dominance worries researchers. Super-
colonies of the newcomers have eliminated the local populations
of five other species, including red fire ants, in areas of the
Texas Gulf coast, the researchers found. In areas where crazy
ants haven�t gone quite as crazy, populations of other ants are
in decline.
Thus far, the crazy ants are not falling for the traditional
poisons used to eliminate fire ant mounds. And when local mounds
are destroyed manually, they are quickly regenerated.

"They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they
are much bigger pests," LeBrun said. "There are videos on
YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from
their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every
three or four months just to keep the infestation under control.
It's very expensive."

Colonies in the South appear to have no natural predators. So
colonies can grow to be 100 times the size of those of local
ants, which can�t compete for food sources. The crazy ants also
directly attack local populations.

How the decreased biodiversity will affect the overall ecosystem
remains unknown. Also unknown is the range of the ant, which
thus far seems to thrive in wet environments with warm winters.

Any spread will be somewhat slower than that of other species
because the reproductive members of crazy ant colonies don�t
fly. Colonies advance about an eighth of a mile a year - unless
they hitch rides, as they have been known to do, in nursery
plants, or even in recreational vehicles.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-sci-sn-alien-crazy-ants-
20130516,0,432338.story