‘Know your ants’ and seek help quickly is the advice from pest control experts Cleankill after the company was called to a serious infestation of Asian super ants at a North London home.
The Asian super ant (Lasius neglectus) is very similar in appearance to the Black garden ant but is much more difficult to control, according to Cleankill.
Service and Technical Manager for Cleankill Pest Control Chris Davis said: “Initially our technician thought they were garden ants but then we noticed they were behaving in an unusual way and they weren’t following trails. They were being seen absolutely everywhere in the house including the microwave and on a bed. We sent a sample of insects to experts at Killgerm who identified them as Asian super ants, and with treatment advice from both Killgerm Chemicals and Bayer; we were able to modify our inspection and treatment procedures accordingly.”
Asian super ants form ‘super colonies’, sometimes consisting of tens of thousands of ants in interconnected nests. These nests do not compete with each other although they do compete strongly with other ant species in the area. Nests are found in leaf litter, under paving, and other stones, and around the base of trees. In the UK the ants have been found nesting in electrical boxes which can cause serious problems.
The species does not produce nuptial flights like ‘flying ants’ and the Queens remain in the nest, sometimes for several years. New satellite colonies are formed by ‘budding’ - ants leave the nests and form new colonies. These satellites may be very small, for instance in a potted plant, and it is thought that in this way the super-colonies can gradually develop. This budding behaviour means that the ants can be easily transported by commerce and seed a new colony.
The ants are originally native to eastern Asia, and were first identified in Budapest in 1990. Since then it has become a pest in Central Europe. They were apparently first recorded in the UK in August 2009 in one well-established colony in Gloucestershire.
Cleankill is also getting more calls than normal to deal with infestations of another closely related ant – the Brown garden ant (Lasius brunneus) which increasingly appears to get into wall cavities and can be deep-seated and very difficult to treat effectively. Proper identification is essential as treatments need to be specifically targeted to this type of ant.
ENDS
Image: "Lasius neglectus casent0173143 profile 1" by April Nobile - AntWeb.org. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lasius_neglectus_casent0173143_pr...
