Audio Video News

A newly recognized species of ant is shorting out computers and other electronic gear in Texas. No, seriously. This is really happening.

The ants jumped off a cargo ship in the port of Houston and have been wreaking havoc ever since. Why they are attracted to electronics is unclear, but they're sabotaging fire alarms, gas meters, and sewage pumps in a five-county area of Texas. Local officials are looking on nervously as they close in on the NASA space center and local airports. Could your home theater system be next?

They're formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" but have acquired the nickname of "crazy Rasberry ants," after local exterminator Tom Rasberry, who is fighting the good fight. They're called crazy because of their erratic marching formations--they don't advance in straight lines like conventional ants. Their movement has been likened to race cars and lava flows.

In addition to attacking electronics, they also suck juice from plants, feed on beneficial insects such as ladybugs, also feed on nastier insects such as fire ants, eat grouse hatchlings, and bite humans. Over-the-counter ant killers don't faze them. Each colony has not one queen, but many, making extermination harder. And they've been known to identify insecticide-treated areas and use their own dead to march over them.

See Texas A&M University Dept. of Entomology and The Times of London.