Exterminator Tom Rasberry lets the creatures named for him, 'crazy rasberry ants,' crawl on his arm Tuesday. The ants are invading homes and yards across the Houston area. They showed up in Texas in 2002. Scientists aren't sure where they came from.
'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.
'Crazy' Ants Swarm Over Houston Area
(May 14) - 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 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 Aggies University entomologist.
