RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

The London 2012 Olympic Games are in full competitive glory and world records in weightlifting, swimming and archery have been smashed. But how do the world's strongest animals, most accurate archers and champion boxers measure up? 

The remarkable achievements of one athlete have earned him the accolade of the most successful Olympian in history, after winning his 20th gold from three Games.

But are Michael Phelps and the other record-breaking Olympians any match for nature's best? BBC Nature has previously examined animal track and field stars, but other incredible feats have also been recorded.

Hossein Rezazadeh of Iran remains one of the greatest weightlifters of all time, lifting a mighty 263kg for a current clean and jerk world record.

But ants are also capable of some remarkable feats of strength for their diminutive size.

Remarkably, a leaf-cutter ant can carry a piece of leaf 50 times its own body weight. Could Hossein carry a van weighing over 2300kg?

Probably not.

So he would be even less happy going up against a rhinoceros beetle.

The male can lift an astonishing 850 times their body weight, or put another way, Hossein lifting six double-decker buses weighing over 8000kg.

But, the species to beat is a tiny mite that has been shown holding forces of up to 1180 times its weight and even pull 530 times its weight on a vertical surface.

These extraordinary invertebrates would get a well-deserved first place and gold medal.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Ants Remember Their Enemy's Scent

Ant colonies - one of nature's most ancient and efficient societies - are able to form a "collective memory" of their enemies, say scientists.

When one ant fights with an intruder from another colony it retains that enemy's odor, passing it on to the rest of the colony. This enables any of its nest-mates to identify an ant from the offending colony.

The findings are reported in the journal Naturwissenschaften.

For many ant species, chemicals are key to functioning as a society. Insects identify their nest-mates by the specific "chemical signature" that coats the body of every member of that nest.

The insects are also able to sniff out any intruder that might be attempting to invade.

This study, carried out by a team from the University of Melbourne in Australia, set out to discover if ants were able to retain memories of the odors they encounter.

The researchers studied the tropical weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina), which builds is home in trees; one nest can contain up to 500,000 workers.

The team set up a "familiarization test" to allow ants from one nest to encounter intruders from another.

Over a series of trials, they placed an ant from a "focal nest" into a tiny observation arena with an ant from another nest.

After 15 of these familiarizing face-offs, the team set up a fake ant invasion. They placed 20 worker ants from the now "familiar" nest on or near the focal nest.

"These intruders were typically attacked by the resident workers," the researchers reported in their paper.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

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 

Click on image to enlarge

What are you looking at in this picture???

It is a ton of ants inside a mailbox! Imagine going to get your mail, a normal daily occurrence. This time you feel something all over your hands and when you look at your hand and mail you have a HEEBIE JEEBIE reaction with associated scream then you drop your mail. A few more convulsing twitches because you feel like they are still on you and then the whole incident is over……almost. You swat the remaining ants off the mail, grab your cell phone, and call your husband to complain about the ants.

“You are a friggin entomologist….why the heck are their ants all over our mailbox???!!!” By now you have figured out that I am the person she is talking to, this is my mailbox, and the woman is my wife Jackie. See, I get to take my work home with me! I spot baited the mailbox with some ant gel when I got home and they were gone the next day. I’m sure this is not the end of it…….

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

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

Did you know that there are more than 12,000 species of ants all over the world! Here's some more fascinating facts about ants.

• An ant can lift 20 times its own body weight. If a second grader was as strong as an ant, she would be able to pick up a car!
• Some queen ants can live for many years and have millions of babies!
• Ants don’t have ears. Ants "hear" by feeling vibrations in the ground through their feet.
• When ants fight, it is usually to the death!
• When foraging, ants leave a pheromone trail so that they know where they’ve been.
• Queen ants have wings, which they shed when they start a new nest.
• Ants don’t have lungs. Oxygen enters through tiny holes all over the body and carbon dioxide leaves through the same holes.
• When the queen of the colony dies, the colony can only survive a few months. Queens are rarely replaced and the workers are not able to reproduce.

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA