Are there ghosts haunting your house?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
October 29, 2003
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They are small, very small, a full-sized worker is only one to one and a half millimeters. The head is dark, but the abdomen and legs are pale. They appear translucent and move quickly. They inhabit the most unlikely places--the bottom of a flower pot, a gap in the wall molding in the bathroom, behind the splashboard by the kitchen sink, even between pages of books on a shelf. They are ghost ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius)) and one is more likely to feel the ant crawling on the skin than to see it. Ghost fits these ants well.
Ghost ants are a tropical species; it is uncertain whether they originally came to the New World from Africa or from China. They have become established in tropical South America, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Florida, and a few places in Texas. But these ghosts have traveled as far north as Winnipeg, Manitoba. They do not survive cold weather, except in nicely warmed greenhouses and well insulated homes.
Ghost ants prefer sweets. They are not the least picky whether the sweets come from spilled sugar in the kitchen or whether they collect honeydew from aphids. Either way, the ants are pests especially since these ghosts will aid and defend aphids in a greenhouse. Once the greenhouse is inhabited by both, ridding it of either the ghosts or the aphids
becomes almost impossible.
Ghost ants are opportunistic nesters. The colony will move into any space, no matter how flimsy, even clumps of dried grass, wads of paper, or piles of clothing. They behave like refugees, the entire colony setting up, then packing up and moving when the nest site falls apart.
This refugee behavior makes it easy for the colony to get transported to new locations. Colonies have been found in the lining of tourists' luggage and bags of dirty laundry. Thousands can inhabit a potted plant on its way to a new home.
The Texas Imported Fire Ant Research and Management Plan has great photographs of various species of ants. The photographs are numbered from 1 to 110, the ghost ant is photograph 104. This is greatly enlarged since the ant is almost impossible to see. To view the photograph, click on the link:
Click here to view the photo
(Compiled from: The Ants, Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson, The Belknap Press, Harvard, 1990; "Ghost Ant", University of Florida, IFAS, Fort Lauderdale; and "Ghost Ant", J.C. Nickerson, C.L. Bloomcamp, and T.R. Fasulo, Featured Creatures, IFAS, University of Florida, 2003)
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Suggested Reading:
What carnivorous plant provides a home for ants? Renfield's Garden - July 15, 2001
Nepenthes bicalcurata Hooker Plant of the Week - October 29, 2001
Bull's-horn Acacia Plant of the Week - February 4, 2002
How do fire ants lose their heads? Renfield's Garden - March 12, 2003
What insects garden in the dark? Renfield's Garden - August 8, 2001
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