What are fire ants?

Answer 1

Fire ant, sometimes called the red fire ant, is the name used in the United States mainly for the ant with the scientific name Solenopsis invicta. It is not a United states ant, but comes from South America. However, people accidentally brought it into the southern states and it has spread and multiplied there. It is a very aggressive ant with a very poisonous sting that will kill all sorts of small animals which it then will eat. That can be bad when the small animals are valuable, but it can be useful if the small animals are crop pests. Even so, if the ants control pests in a crop they also can make it very difficult to harvest the crop. It also can be a very serious problem if a lot of fire ant nests enter pastures, because they will attack any livestock feeding in the pasture.

If they bite and sting people and larger animals, the sting is very painful. People say it burns like fire and that is why it is called the fire ant. Where someone has been stung by a fire ant it often will leave a nasty red swelling that may form a pus-filled blister. What is worse, some people become dangerously allergic to the stings and may die if stung. Even people without Allergies may die if stung too badly, say by thousands of ants. This has been known to happen during floods, when, if a fire ant colony is flooded out, all the ants will float away with all the ants clinging to each other in a mass like a Basketball. If the colony floats against a tree or a house where someone has climbed to shelter from the flood, it will stop and climb onto the same place and then is likely to attack whoever is sheltering in the same place, killing them because they cannot get away from the thousands of stings.
One reason that the ants have multiplied so greatly in the United States is that when they were brought to the United States, their natural enemies were not brought with them. Nowadays some of the Phorid flies that attack them in South America have been brought to the United States, and it is hoped that they will control the ants in the United States in the same way that they control them in South America.

There are many other kinds of ant in the genus called Solenopsis, more than 200. Some of them are fire ants like Solenopsis invicta, but others have very different habits; for example some of them will parasitise the nests of other kinds of Solenopsis.

Answer 2

Fire ants are aggressive reddish-brown ants known for their painful stings. They build large mound nests and are commonly found in the southern United States. Their sting can cause allergic reactions in some individuals.