One of the worst pests that people have to deal with in their homes is ants. These small creatures get into our homes and find their way into our kitchens and pantries and feed upon our food. They can do all sorts of damage in the form of carpenter ants and other ants that actually will destroy your wood.
Some of them are harmless, and some of them are even helpful. But it’s important to understand as much as we can as homeowners about ants. And it’s important to understand what your Tulsa Pest Control company can do to help you if you do have ants. So let’s take a good hard look at ants.
Not all ants are bad. Let’s take the leafcutter ant, for example. The leafcutter ant is an ant that has a symbiotic relationship with a fungus. The way it works is these leafcutter ants will go out of their colony, cut off pieces of leaves, and bring them back to their colony.
They can carry chunks of leaves that are much larger than their bodies all the way back to their colony and then cut them up. They take the small pieces of leaves down inside and feed them to a fungus that’s underneath the ground. This fungus will consume the leaves and then create a sticky substance that’s sweet and full of sugar. The insects will feed upon this and survive. So the ants and the fungus work together.
Other ant species will actually work together with aphids. Aphids are a special kind of insect that feed upon the sweet nectar inside plants. Often what’ll happen is these insects will start to feed upon the liquid and overfeed, and a small amount of the liquid will come out their anus. This is known as honeydew.
This honeydew is very sweet and full of sugar, and many ants will fight over it. There are some species of ants that will actually herd aphids. By doing so, they protect the aphids but then get exclusive rights to the honeydew that those aphids produce for them. In this relationship, they have a symbiotic relationship with one another.
Some ants are not as nice about it. The thief ant uses its pheromones to hide in plain sight. Pheromones are a special kind of hormone that is smellable. Insects can sense them, and they give off different communication to each of the other insects around them.
The thief ant will use pheromones to mimic other ants and then sneak down inside their colony and steal their larvae and eggs. They’ll take their larvae and eggs and then feed upon them when they get to their home colony.
Many different ants will often war with one another and raid each other. Soldier ants inside the colonies are often used to raid other ant colonies and again steal larvae and eggs to feed upon. Because of this, ants are ferocious predators.
They’re also often feeding upon termites and other termite colonies. Termites make a great meal for an ant colony.
If you think you’re having a problem with ants or any other pests, then it’s probably time to call a Tulsa Pest Control company that can get you out of the mess. TermMax Pest Control is a great pest control company that can help you with that. Give us a call today.
