Is there a new species of ant?

Question

I happen to know a little bit about ants because I had an ant infestation in another house I lived in. Ants usually travel in straight lines, picking up the scent trail left by other ants. They also are usually attracted to sugar and food crumbs. Well, just in the past few days I've got these little bitty ants crawling randomly all over my kitchen counters. I keep my counters immaculately clean, I even put the toaster and everything away, and wipe the counters with vinegar. Well someone accidentally left the sugar bowl on the counter without the lid and I panicked. Suprisingly there were no ants in it, instead they were all over the other side of the counter! These ants aren't crawling in any kind of line or anything, and I even went outside and didn't see any ants at all crawling up the side of the house. These don't seem to be attracted to food, they just randomly crawl all over. I wipe them up, but a minute later they are back, and I can't figure out where they're coming from.

Answer 1

Apparently so, not new, but newly discovered:

Look Out Texas Gulf Coast, here comes Paratrechina pubens, or something like that.

Exotic Texas Ant (urbanentomology.tamu.edu)



Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Tom Rasberry, an exterminator, is said to have discovered the ants in 2002. He offered to lend his name to the pest.

Scientists do not quite know what to call them, they are so new. But folks in the damp coastal belt south of Houston have their own names (some of them printable) for the little invaders now seemingly everywhere: on the move underfoot; infesting woodlands, yards and gardens; nesting in electrical boxes and causing shorts; and even raising anxiety at Hobby Airport and the Johnson Space Center.

“We call them running ants,” said Diane Yeo, a homeowner in suburban Pearland, turning over a planter by her swimming pool to reveal a seething carpet of ants, yes, running, each about the size of the letter “i” on this page.

That was not the worst of it. “Looks like they’re carrying eggs,” said her husband, Bob.

The ant is a previously unknown variety with a staggering propensity to reproduce and no known enemies. The species, which bites but does not sting, was first identified here in 2002 by a Pearland exterminator, Tom Rasberry, who quickly lent his name to the find: the crazy rasberry ant.

Some newly discovered ants aren't exactly vandals sacking Rome, but they pillage valuable real estate nonetheless.

The new species, in the genus Megalomyrmex, specializes in raiding the nest gardens of fungus-cultivating ants, say Rachelle M.M. Adams and Ulrich G. Mueller of the University of Texas, Austin and their coauthors.

The raiders chase away the original farmers but don't fertilize the farm. The usurpers eat the dwindling fungus and chop up the farmers' left-behind larvae as baby food for their own young. The bounty eventually runs out and the raiders move on, say the researchers in the December 2000 NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN.

Pothole pals: ants pave roads for fellow raiders

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Pothole pals: ants pave roads for fellow raiders

Megalomyrmex and other ants are known for their thieving ways. While some ant species raid farms to eat larvae, others infiltrate fungus gardens as phony nest mates that don't help with farm chores. The new species might represent a missing link between these two lifestyles, Mueller speculates. Until now, he says, "no one has documented raiding for the sake of the gardens."

Answer 2

Yeah, there's this thing called "crazy rasberry ants."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Rasbe...

Answer 3

The only new species lately in the news in the USA was a spider that was brand new, down in Louisiana.  Haven't heard about a new ant species or any that go for electronics.  Most ants are attracted to only food.

If you've got tiny brown ants, they're coming in from outside, the best you can do is spray Raid or lay down powdered borax with a hint of sugar in it  (dry, smush it into the baseboard cracks and the bottoms of the cupboard cracks) or sprinkle down crushed, dried  peppermint leaves.  Those all work.