There is a large black ant that stings like a red - hot phonograph needle . And when I say sting , I meansting !
citizenry fuse up “ biting ” and “ prick ” all the time . I ’ve learn masses say they got “ fleck ” by a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant after being stung .
No , this ant emphatically stings . It has a stinger and it stings like fervour .
But it is n’t a fire ant .
The most stereotypical stinging ant in the South isthe fervor ant , a nasty signification that is slowly spreading due north into Yankee dominion . When I moved to Tennessee back in ’ 03 , it had just initiate showing up in the Nashville expanse . The hearsay was they had come in thanks to bagged grunge at Home Depot or something to that effect .
But this ant is n’t the ardor ant . For one , it ’s a lot bigger and depend different . And for two , it ’s almost unknown at bottom of the states . Let ’s throw in a “ for three ” as well , and add that the diabolical things live in folio bedding and make it nigh insufferable for compost enthusiasts to gather forest duff with their bare hands inside its chain of mountains .
And like fire ants , it ’s also an undesirable invader from southern climes .
MeetOdontomachus haematodus
We first met this ant down in the West Indies on the island of Grenada . Our local sodbuster protagonist Mike call it a “ tuk tuk ” ant . My guess is that the name came from the clicking sound the ant make when their nest is shake up .
When I was out in my yard moving some junk out of a fallen shed a few days ago , I came across what looked like the precise same species , yet we were far from the tropic !
Could it be ?
One of the children allowed himself to be stung as a test , conjure up up a nest and sticking his bridge player into it .
My kids are hard core .
With a clinched jaw and weeping in his eyes , he confirm the species . They were the same dazed , malign , aggressive , nasty pismire we believe we ’d left far behind . ( The next day I gave him a silver dime bag for his bravery – I let in , I was impressed . The small fry is going space , offer he does n’t try the same trick with a nest of alligator . )
Odontomachus haematodusmakes nest in molder Natalie Wood , leaf litter and mulch . Unlike flame ants , which have the decency to make large hill you’re able to keep off , the colonies are enshroud until you uncover them , often with your bare hands .
Throwing around mulch , assemble foliage for compost , picking up fall limbs – these are activities fraught with peril for those living inO. haematodusterritory .
The ants are about a half - inch long , slender and shiny black . Their movements are quick , robotic and angular . Their truly distinguishing lineament is the remarkable jaws pop out threateningly from the front of their distasteful little headspring .
These jaws give them the terrifying name of
Trapjaw Ants!
The jaw of this black , stinging , invasive pismire are terrifying . calculate at the monolithic mandibular bone on this thing !
Once the trapjaw ant experience you with its jaws , the cut is certain to follow – and they are not justableto sting , they areeagerto sting . They ’ll bite you for look at them .
Worse , the gyp is like a burning hot needle . A stab of flaming tearing into your finger and up your weapon . The infliction fleet away in a few moment , but the memory will keep you fall apart baseball mitt while doing yard oeuvre .
The crazy affair is that we never saw this ant in Florida and did n’t encounter it until actuate to the West Indies . There we learned about it quick through awful experience , but when we leave the island we really thought we ’d never see them again .
Alas , we were untimely .
Somehow we terminate up move to one of the only place in the country where this smutty matter lives .
According toEntomology Today :
“ Trap - jaw ant specie are combat-ready Orion with deadly stings and jaw powerful enough to fling themselves through the strain . allot to unexampled enquiry , they are also spread into new territory in the southeasterly United States .
‘ The fact that some of these species are spreading is interesting , in part because these gargantuan ants have managed to expand their territory without anyone noticing , ’ said Magdalena Sorger , a PhD candidate at North Carolina State University and atomic number 27 - author of a Modern paper discover the ant metal money . ‘ We cognize very fiddling about these pismire , including how they interact with aboriginal ant specie in the orbit they ’re invading . ’
One mintage call Odontomachus haematodus was unofficially recorded in Alabama back in 1956 . But now researchers have officially corroborate that the specie has disperse across the Gulf Coast , at least as far east as Pensacola , Florida . ”
If you come across a heavy , stinging black ant in South Alabama or North Florida , it ’s almost certainlyOdontomachus haematodus , the “ tuk tuk emmet ” or “ trapjaw ant . ” When in Grenada I could never determine the metal money , but as soon as I come back to the province and discovered it here , I was able to do some google searching and figure it out thanks to our much better entomologists .
harmonize toMississsippi State University :
“ pismire in this genus differ from other ponerine ants establish in the United States by the unique principal human body ; curious mandibles , which are elongate and enclose near the nerve centre of the clypeus ; the magnanimous tapering petiole ; and the enceinte size of it of the actor ( see photograph above ) ( for a more detailed diagnosis of the genus , see MacGown et al . 2014 ) . Members of this genus are ordinarily phone lying in wait - jaw ants due to their elongate mandibles , which can be open up to 180 ° , then snap speedily together on prey . These ant are amazing in their ability to control and time the inframaxillary front . When necessary , an ant can forcibly shut the jowl against a open or other organism and in reality propel itself off for up to several inches ! ”
The clicking of the jaws is the “ tuk tuk ” noise we hear when a nest is stirred up . you could see and hear their attacks distinctly in this video :
I am have compost - gathering posttraumatic stress disorder ascertain that telecasting .
Also consort to Mississippi State , the ant is now spreading through the Gulf Coast state :
“ Odontomachus haemtodus ( Linnaeus ) ( Ponerinae ) , the two - spin trapjaw pismire , is a gravid , dark biased species native to South America that has recently become launch along the US gulf coast from northern Florida to southern Louisiana . base on large populations , apparent successful rivalry with native species that nest in the same home ground , and its painful sting , this species shows encroaching potential in the US . ”
Maybe if we ’re lucky the trapjaw ants andmurder hornetswill come across in the eye of the US and push each other .
That is , unless they are stopped bygiant hogweedgaining sensation and wage warfare on all animal life .
If vicious , cutting , giant , tropic , black trapjaw ant can leave the equatorial neighborhood and terrorize nurseryman in Alabama , almost anything is potential .
- Scientific images by April Nobile / © AntWeb.org/CC BY - SA 3.0
