įire ants have been known to form mutualistic relationships with several species of Lycaenidae and Riodinidae butterflies.
They do not hibernate, but can survive cold conditions, although this is costly to fire ant populations as observed during several winters in Tennessee, where 80 to 90% of colonies died due to several consecutive days of extremely low temperatures. These ants are renowned for their ability to survive extreme conditions. One such species that Solenopsis ants parasitically take advantage of are bees, such as Euglossa imperialis, a nonsocial orchid bee species, from which the ants enter the cells from below the nest and rob the cell's contents. Fire ants are more aggressive than most native species, so have pushed many species away from their local habitat. For humans, this is a painful sting, a sensation similar to what one feels when burned by fire (hence the name), and the after-effects of the sting can be deadly to sensitive people. Unlike many other ants, which bite and then spray acid on the wound, fire ants bite only to get a grip and then sting (from the abdomen) and inject a toxic alkaloid venom called solenopsin, a compound from the class of piperidines. Fire ants often attack small animals such as small lizards and can kill them.
Behavior Ī fire ant worker, queen, and male (clockwise from bottom left)Ī typical fire ant colony produces large mounds in open areas, and feeds mostly on young plants, insects and seeds. Many ants bite, and formicine ants can cause irritation by spraying formic acid myrmecine ants like fire ants have a dedicated venom-injecting sting, which injects an alkaloid venom, as well as mandibles for biting.
#Fire ant bites plus
ants can be identified by three body features-a pedicel with two nodes, an unarmed propodeum, and antennae with 10 segments plus a two-segmented club. In an established nest these different sizes of ants are all present at the same time. The worker ants are blackish to reddish and their size varies from 2 to 6 mm (0.079 to 0.236 in). Fire ants of those species invasive in the United States can be distinguished from other ants locally present by their copper brown head and thorax with a darker abdomen. The bodies of mature fire ants, like the bodies of all typical mature insects, are divided into three sections: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen, with three pairs of legs and a pair of antennae. ĭetail of the head ( Solenopsis geminata) Wasmannia auropunctata is another unrelated ant commonly called the "little fire ant" due to its potent sting. None of these names apply to all species of Solenopsis nor only to Solenopsis species for example the colloquial names for several species of weaver ants in the genus Oecophylla in Southeast Asia include "fire ants" because of their similar coloration and painful bites the two genera, however, are not closely related. Both Myrmica rubra and Pogonomyrmex barbatus are common examples of non-Solenopsis ants being termed red ants. Many of the names shared by this genus are often used interchangeably to refer to other species of ant, such as the term red ant, mostly because of their similar coloration despite not being in the genus Solenopsis.
Solenopsis are stinging ants, and most of their common names reflect this, for example, ginger ants and tropical fire ants. Fire ants are several species of ants in the genus Solenopsis, which includes over 200 species.