'Crazy' Ants Swarm Houston Area

DALLAS — "In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" — crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

The ants — formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" — have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.

"At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed," said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.

The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers."

Damn if that don't beat all. Them Caribbeaners sending us their bad ants as if we don't have more than our fair share already. And who in all hells cares if they kill fire ants. I kill fire ants every livelong day and you don't see no eggheads trying to put me on no endangered species list and thats where its headed, mark my words.

Soon as we find us a good enough pesticide then goodbye crazy raspberry's. And don't listen to none of them bug lovin' scientists who spend all their time trying to fool us that nasty critters are really swell to have around. The crazies eat fruits and veggies and even 'lectrical wirings. And I'm not talking about letting them Caribbeaners get off scot-free, neither. Next time some cargo ship drops off nasty bugs then its Katie bar the door. Got us plenty of extra nukulars sitting around doing not one damned thing and there's more than one way to skin a cat.