How do fire ants lose their heads?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

March 12, 2003

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The characters seem as if they stepped out of an Ed Wood Jr. movie. The ghouls are red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta Buren). Even the name fits the bad movie genre: solen- "pipe", -opsis "appearance", and invicta "invincible". Loosely, very loosely, translated: the "invincible pipe-face".

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The "invincibles" arrived in the southern U.S. sometime in the 1930s or early '40s. The ants spread rapidly. (See Renfield's Garden, March 5, 2003) Massive doses of pesticides were applied in the southern states. After all the chemical applications were done, the poisons remained in the soils and so did the fire ants. Entomologists looked to South America to discover why fire ants are not invasive in their native habitat. They found that even ghouls have ghouls.

Phorids (family: Phoridae) are small flies, commonly called humpback flies. Some phorid species are attracted to decaying organic matter, others attack mushrooms, and a few, the Pseudacteon, decapitate for a living. Some of the Pseudacteon [sue dac' tee on] decapitate red imported fire ants.

According to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Pseudacteon have a rather simple, yet Machiavellian, life cycle. The flies are no larger than a fire ant's head. The female lands on a worker ant and lays an egg. When the egg hatches, the larva burrows into the head and consumes the contents. When the larva is ready to emerge as an adult fly, it releases a chemical and the fire ant's head falls off. The gallant fly flies off looking for romance. ("Biological Control of Imported Fire Ants", Oct 2000, ACES)

Pseudacteon tricuspis and P. curvatus actually parasitize very few fire ants. Like a bad movie, the potential victims (worker fire ants) huddle in terror. Reluctant to leave the nest, the colony suffers from lean times. The few that venture forth give off an alarm pheromone if anything disturbs the nest; more ants rush out to defend the colony. Robert Vander Meer and Sanford Porter with the USDA discovered the pheromone not only activates the ants; it attracts the decapitators.

The Alabama Cooperative Extension System has posted "Biological Control of Imported Fire Ants" by Kathy Flanders, Sanford Porter, and David Oi. The article includes photographs of Pseudacteon preying on fire ants. To learn more and view the photographs, click on the link:

http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1149/

The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell, has posted an article by Lloyd W. Morrison with photographs by Morrison, Larry Gilbert, and Sanford Porter. To read the article and view the photographs, click on the link:

http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/parasitoids/pseudacteon.html

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