Fire Ants

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Term Paper Title	Fire Ants
# of Words	2050
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	8.2

Fire Ants

Fire Ants

     Fire ants have been in the United States for over sixty years, and almost
every American that lives in or frequently visits the quarantined states which
they inhabit has had an unpleasant run in with these troublesome critters.
Inhabitants of the Southeast who have ever stood unwittingly atop a fire ant
mound know that the insects are aptly named.  When the ants sting it creates a
sensation similar to scorching caused by a hot needle touching the skin
momentarily (1. Tschinkel 474). Fire ants are native to South America and were
introduced to the United States in 1928 through a port in Mobile, Alabama.  The
ants were stowaways hidden in soil used for ballast and in dunnage dropped off
the ships once they had sailed from South America to the ports of Alabama (2.
Lockley 31).  The two basic species of fire ants in the United States are the
are black and red, they vary in length from one eighth to one quarter inch.
Black fire ants arrived first followed shortly by the infamous imported red
fire ants.  Black ants (Solenopsis Richteri Forel) were the first to arrive and
spread slowly but steadily despite government intervention to stop them from
spreading(3. Lockley 33).  These black ants would spread much further then the
second wave of imported ants   recognized as Solenopsis Invicta Buren or red
fire ants(4. Lockley 33).  This second wave of ants arrived in about 1945 and
spread much more rapidly and dominated the previous more passive black ant(5.
Lockley  34).  Homer Collins, a fire ant expert, stated that "The new invader,
known as the red imported fire ant, proved more adaptive and rapidly displaced
the existing imported black ant.  By 1949, Solenopsis Invicta Buren were the
dominant species of imported fire ant.  Ants could be found in commercial
ornamental-plant nurseries in the heart of the Southeast."  Red ants are a
particularly aggressive ant species that, like the killer bees, are rapidly
spreading northward from the Southeastern United States, and have traveled as
far west as Texas and as far north as North Carolina.  "Experts predict that the
ants may eventually reach as far west as California and as far north as
Chesapeake Bay."(7. Tschinkel 474). The spread of fire ants into new areas
depends on many factors:  the existing level of fire ant population, climate,
competition, and natural predators .  In areas where other ant populations are
well established and an abundance of natural enemies exist, colony establishme...

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