![]() ![]() But if you’re stung just once and don’t see the fire ant, you’ll know it by the fiery sensation and the white pus-filled blister that forms a day or two later. Of course, if you’ve picked up multiple fire ants, you’ll know what’s stinging you because you’ll see and feel them on your skin. “You may see a row of red marks, and that’s where one ant has grabbed on and stabbed its stinger down in a semicircle,” he says. “You may be outside working in a garden or something and get just one on your arm or leg, but commonly people make the mistake of stopping and standing on a mound without realizing it, so they end up covered and they get hundreds of stings.”Ī fire ant’s stinger is not barbed, so it can sting a person multiple times. It’s possible to experience just a single sting from a lone fire ant. “It starts out as a small, red spot, and, after a day or two, a white pustule forms that’s itchy and a little bit painful,” Merchant says. How You Know It’s a Fire Ant Bite or Sting Merchant says fire ants are well named because their sting causes a hot, fiery sensation on the skin. “Only the females sting, and their stinger is very sharp and delivers venom.” “Fire ants don’t bite, they deliver a sting via their tail,” Merchant says. Fire ants are among the very few types of domestic ants that frequently bite people.īut saying that these ants “bite” is actually inaccurate. Unfortunately their prey includes humans. “Wherever they go, they lower biodiversity and attack other ants and animals.” ( 2) And since then, they’ve become an “ecological disaster,” Merchant says. ![]() It’s thought that fire ants arrived in the United States in the 1930s via cargo ships traveling from South America. ( 1) “In Texas and a lot of the Southwest, they’ve made going outside and sitting on the ground a pleasure of the past,” he says. And as the species has spread across much of the southern half of the continental United States, many people have had similar run-ins with fire ants. Merchant says that when he and his wife moved to Texas many years ago, they had a horrific, picnic-spoiling fire ant experience like the one described above. “They’re really a miserable ant species,” says Michael Merchant, PhD, a professor of entomology at Texas A&M University in Dallas.ĭr. ![]()
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