Ant Characteristics

When ants enter your home in a trail, they already have instructions as to what the colony needs.

• Suddenly you have thousands of ants where you least expected them. Ants live in societies we call colonies.

The work is divided among workers with each having their tasks to enhance the colony. The workers that forage for food outside the nest are usually only a small percentage (3 to 5%) of the colony. When the colony is mature it enters its reproductive stage where it sends out queens and males to begin other colonies. Colony cycles vary depending on if they are monogamous (one queen) or polygamous (multiple queens).

• Identification of ants is primary to the pest control operator.

The five most common ants you will find in the house in southern California are the Argentine, Pharaoh, Thief, Odorous house and Carpenter ants. The most prevalent of these home invading ants are the Argentine ants. These ants are particularly difficult to eradicate. They live in the soil at shallow depths where multiple numbers of queens lay thousands of eggs daily. The colonies split in the early summer but stay connected by an elaborate highway system. The smaller nomad colonies are very mobile and can pick up and move in a very short notice. Their temporary home could be under the edge of your carpet to just under a vase on your kitchen window.

• Ants can spread germs through out your home.

This means they can spread disease everywhere they walk. Ants can crawl across your decaying spoiled garbage, through your sewer over dead animals and then the plates and silverware in your kitchen. They bring into your home bacteria of all kinds. They foster the multiplication of destructive plant pests. Control can be very difficult even while knowing which ant is present.

• Ants are one of the planet's most numerous non-microscopic animals.

When combined, all ants in the world taken together weigh about as much as all human beings." This is according to Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson in their latest book, "Journey to the Ants", Harvard University Press.