RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

Did you know that an ant's abdomen contains two stomachs?! One stomach holds food for itself while the other one contains food to be shared with other ants.

Here's a few more cool ant facts:

• Ants have 250,000 brain cells while humans have 10,000 million.
• Combined weights of ants on earth is more than the combined weight of humans.
• Ants began farming about 50 million years before humans thought to raise their own crops.
• Ants rarely fight but when they do fight it is a fight to death most of the time.
• Ants often sleep seven hours a day, while a type of ant i.e. fire ant takes about 250 naps each day.
• The legs of the ant are very strong so they can run very quickly. If a man could run as fast for his size as an ant can, he could run as fast as a racehorse.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Termites and Carpenter Ants Drove Tiger's Ex to Demolish $12 Million Mansion

Finally, an explanation why Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods' ex-wife, bulldozed the $12 million oceanfront mansion she bought only last year.

Her builder told People magazine the 17,000 foot, six bedroom home in North Palm Beach, Fla. wasn't built to code to withstand Florida hurricanes. To top it off, Habitat for Humanity found the place was crawling with termites and carpenter ants. So it made more sense structurally and economically to tear it down and start over with a new home.

The 32-year-old Nordegren, who's living nearby with her and Woods' two children, invited the charity to salvage tens of thousands of dollars worth of cabinets, hardware and fixtures before sending in the wrecking crew. Said Habitat's director of deconstruction, Bobbi Blodgett: When we pulled out the windows, the bugs were everywhere... To rebuild that house would have been ridiculous. We're so grateful to Elin. It's rare we get this kind of donation.

Nordegren got $100 million in her divorce from Woods so she can afford it. She never shared the demolished mansion with Woods, who recently appeared as an honorary captain for his alma mater Stanford at the Fiesta Bowl.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

We often see many of our clients unsuccessfully attempt to solve the squirrel problem in their attic by performing tree pruning and even removing a valuable shade tree! Not only can this be expensive, but it very rarely works. While it’s good to trim back branches and vegetation that may touch your home to prevent some moisture and insect invasion, especially Carpenter Ants I have never seen it keep squirrels from accessing the openings at the roofline.

Tree squirrels are very good climbers and quite adept to solving access obstructions. Elizabethan style collars installed around electric and utility lines (with the owning companies permission) does work in some instances to keep them from “Running the Wires” to enter but I have personally witnessed a Gray Squirrel tip the upper portion of a collar down enough to jump over the collar to the wires on the other side. Squirrels can gain easy access to the roof by climbing on your gutter downspouts, utility and A/C lines. These adept climbers can also run directly up the wooden shingled siding, easily obtain grip to brick and stucco to run directly up any side unaided by gutter downspouts, conduits, vines, etc.

While it IS possible to prevent these expert climbing rodents from getting to the roofline, the process and cost of modification may far exceed the expense associated with simple evacuation and reinforcement to vulnerable areas with stainless steel mesh or other permanent materials.

John Stellberger
President - Environmental Health Services, Inc.

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Did you know that there are over a thousand different species of carpenter ant? Below are more fascinating facts about carpenter ants!

• The carpenter ant is one of the largest of all the types of ant, ranging between a sixteenth of an inch to half an inch in length.
• Queen carpenter ants have been known to grow to a massive one inch in size.
• Carpenter ants get their name from the fact that they make their nests in wood, cutting, grooving, tunneling and sanding to make a series of long tunnels, or galleries, in which they live.
• Carpenter ants are skilled carpenters and their wooden homes are perfectly smooth and rounded, sanded to perfection, and they leave no mess, no splinters, sawdust, chippings or other debris cluttering up the place.
• The carpenter ants do not actually eat the wood they excavate galleries for nesting.
• Most foraging is done at night between sunset and midnight during spring and summer months.
• Sometimes workers travel up to 100 yards from a nest in search of food.
• Carpenter ant colonies can range from several hundred ants to several thousand ants per colony.
• There can be up to 15 colonies on a given property with ants in excess of 50,000!

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Fungus Turns Tropical Carpenter Ants Into Walking Dead
An ingeniously deadly fungus hijacks the bodies of ants for food and reproduction.

It’s like something out of a horror movie. A parasitic fungus infiltrates the body of a tropical carpenter ant, feeding on it and manipulating its body. The fungus forces the dying ant to the forest understory, an environment more conducive to its growth. The invasion of this fungal body-snatcher culminates with it sprouting a spore-laden fruiting body from the dead ant’s head.

An account of this deadly assault on tropical carpenter ants (Camponotus leonardi) by a parasitic fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) is described in the May 9, 2011 issue of the open access journal BMC Ecology.

Similar incidences of fungi parasitizing insects occur in other parts of the world. This particular case of zombie ants plays out in the forests of Thailand.

It’s a pretty gruesome affair, so if you find movies like The Thing and Night of the Living Dead too scary, now’s a good time to stop reading!

The paper’s lead author, Dr. David Hughes of Penn State University, described the ant-fungus interaction in a press release.

The fungus attacks the ants on two fronts. Firstly by using the ant as a walking food source, and secondly by damaging muscle and the ant’s central nervous system, resulting in zombie walking and the death bite, which place the ant in the cool damp understory. Together these provide the perfect environment for fungal growth and reproduction. This behavior of infected ants is essentially an extended phenotype of the fungus (fungal behaviour through the ant’s body) as non-infected ants never behave in this way.

Tropical carpenter ants spend most of their time high in the forest canopy. When they venture down to the jungle understory, they follow well-defined trails. It’s during this time that ants could get infected by fungal spores that land on their outer body.

The fungus can only complete its life cycle through the ant. Spores germinate, and the fungus penetrates the ant’s body. It proceeds to infect the entire animal, affecting its central nervous system. You can tell when a carpenter ant has been infected: instead of marching purposefully down a trail, an infected worker ant walks about haphazardly, displaying erratic behavior. Sporadic convulsions set in, causing the infected ant to fall from the canopy to the moist, cool, leafy forest understory, ideal conditions for the fungus to continue its growth.

Read more of this article, by clicking: Zombie ants: When ants become walking dead

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Click on image to enlarge

I am doing a pest inspection for mice and the customer shows me crazy ant trails in her kitchen and cabinets. She said they are getting into everything!!! She tried to fix it by spraying some Raid aerosol and added that they go away but come back in a few days. I told her that she is just killing scout ants with the Raid not eliminating the colony. The colony keeps sending more ants to replace the ones you sprayed.

I told her the ant colony is outside and we need to treat that. She half heartedly believed me until I showed her the massive pavement ant colony outside. She was completely amazed and said “I guess there is a reason why professionals are better.” I responded by saying anyone can “turn the screw” (AKA spray insecticide) but it takes a professional to know what screw to turn!

Mark Tremblay
Service Specialist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

click on image to enlarge

Nothing like scoring a direct hit! This customer’s house was absolutely inundated with carpenter ants. I found the area that was suspect as being one of the major colonies on the property. This one was in the sun room addition, there were a few other nests both inside and out. The second I did a direct void treatment to the area the sound of the ants freaking out plus movement caused the wall to vibrate! Thousands of ants started spilling out. The customer was planning on replacing the window in this room because of the moisture leak so she gave me permission to remove the sheetrock. I wanted to be sure I got all the ants.

What you see is a massive void nest in the wall. There was extensive carpenter ant damage. Notice all the dead ants and sawdust (called frass) in the area? The customer was thrilled with our attention to details. Looks like another win for the good guys.

Paul Simmons
Service Specialist
Environmental Health Services, Inc.

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Big Brains Steal Insects’ Breath Away (From The NY Times)

There is a type of cockroach that can go without breathing for seven minutes at a time, and a moth pupa that can go several hours without breathing. Now a new study in The American Naturalist reports that there is a commonality among insects displaying this behavior: they have large, complex brain structures.

The behavior, known as discontinuous gas exchange, is seen only in certain insects, and only when they are in a resting state.

“If you’ve got a big brain, it’s costly to run,” said Philip Matthews, a physiologist at the University of Queensland in Australia and the study’s lead author. “If you go into a sleeplike state, you can save energy.”

When in this state, the insect will stop breathing for a long period of time, followed by a series of short breaths, and then one long breath.

To conduct the study, Dr. Matthews and a colleague, Craig White, studied the brains of several species of insects that display this behavior.

They found that when the insects’ brains were removed, they displayed discontinuous breathing patterns.

“They have a nerve cord comprised of ganglia, which are kind of like mini-brains,” said Dr. Matthews. “We think that when the insect is active, the brain is sending a constant message to breathe, but when it’s inactive the ganglia take over.”

The breathing pattern has been seen in different species of wasps, ants, moths, butterflies, grasshoppers, beetles and cockroaches.

Previously, scientists have hypothesized that insects display this behavior to more effectively retain water. But this seemed unlikely when the breathing pattern was found among insects in dry deserts and in the humid tropics.

George Williams
General Manager

Pest Control, MA ,  Pest Control, RI

Warehouse Must Deal with Insect and Rodent Infestation

A New Hope, MN food warehouse was infested with rodents, insects and birds in July, according to a warning letter issued this month by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA ordered the company, New Wha Ming Trading of MN, Inc. to correct violations within 15 days or explain why it needs more time.

During five visits in July, inspectors noticed live and dead rodents, including several in traps; droppings in 17 locations on food and elsewhere; nesting material and gnawed containers.

Bags of food were stained with urine. There were bird droppings on cans of condensed milk. Insects were found on bags and on a dead rodent.

Owner Weizhen Lin said Wednesday he had not received the FDA letter but the company is "working on the issues."

George Williams,
General Manager

Pest Control, MA ,  Pest Control, RI

Recently awarded the “Green Buildings Product Seal” from Green-Buildings.com, the Leaf Defier gutter protection system from FXI Building Products Corporation helps improve storm water management, enhance building durability and prevent pest infestations by allowing water and fine particulates to flow freely through gutter systems while keeping leaves and other debris out, the firm says.

Designed with high-performance urethane polymers, Leaf Defier is easily inserted into gutters to ensure leaves, twigs, pine needles and other possible obstructions and animal food sources are kept from entering and clogging gutter systems. As a result, water flows readily through the foam filter insert, into the gutter valley and out the downspout to virtually eliminate overflows.

In addition, recent research within the pest management field has confirmed the potential benefits of Leaf Defier, which if used properly can change conducive conditions away from pests, the firm reports. In fact, Leaf Defier can help solve problems by preventing all forms of pests from entering the gutter cavity, including insects like mosquitoes that breed in standing water or carpenter ants that can build nests in moist wood caused by clogged gutters. EHS is an authorized installer of the Leaf Defier system.

George Williams
General Manager

Pest Control, MA ,  Pest Control, RI