Texas Ants Living In Roof

These ants are reddish brown in color and are most recognizable by the way they move.

Texas ants living in roof.

Nest hollow trees logs posts landscaping timbers wood in homes several hundred to thousands parent colony satellites eat live insects honeydew fungus associated with wood scavengers baits dusts sprays university of minnesota. This dark brown ant has long legs and antennae is extremely fast moving. Mature colonies build large dome shaped mounds that can contain more than 200 000 ants. It commonly infests buildings especially in the warmer more humid parts of the state.

Depending upon distribution and cold weather conditions ants may be as likely to nest outdoors as indoors especially in many parts of the warmer more southerly portions of their distribution also the preferred indoors locations and food preferences of the ants listed below may vary to some degree since there is a lot of species specific variability among ants. Red imported fire ants infest the eastern two thirds of texas and all of the southeastern united states see geographic distribution of fire ants. Check uut the swarms of black ants throughout a roof cavity inspected by ron as part of a visual termite inspection. Ant colonies are often located in cracks and crevices between structural timbers but the ants can also tunnel into structural wood to form nesting galleries although this is rare for species occurring in texas.

If there are trees near your home that may be a potential source for ants gaining access to your roof pruning may be necessary. Ants belong to the family of insects called formicidae and are in the order hymenoptera which also includes bees sawflies and wasps. The reproductive members of an ant colony are the only members with wings. One common crazy ant species in east and south texas is the true crazy ant paratrechina longicornis.

When a colony is mature the reproductive ants emerge to find mates and create a new colony. They often appear to prefer moist decaying wood wood with dry rot or old termite galleries. Formicidae in texas see the common ant genera of texas a full color identification key to the common ant genera of texas. They live in colonies preferring to build the mounds in open sunny areas.

There are over 291 species of ants hymenoptera. Ants in the walls. You can also spray the area with ant spray to help keep the ants from returning. Some of the more common species of ants found living in the southeast region of texas include.

First discovered around houston in 2002 tawny crazy ants also known as raspberry crazy ants arrived in texas from south america. Among the smaller types of ants in texas the tawny crazy ant is only about 1 10 inch in length.