Know Your Enemy
Accurate identification of pests is as important as choosing the best preventive pest management available on the market today. Preventive Pest Control has compiled a list of most common pests to help you identify the problem.
Allegheny Mound Ant
(Formica exsectoides)
Characteristics
The Allegheny mound ant varies in sizes. With most of them 1/8 to 1/4 inches in length. They look like carpenter ants because of their reddish to orange, or black color. However, they are different with the carpenter ants because of their uneven thorax.
Habitat
These ants dig tunnels and chambers deep underground, but will create mounds above ground to create nests. If these ants are left alone, they can create large mounds that may be 8 inches tall and 2 feet wide in just 6 months. And, in just two years, these mounds can be 3 feet tall with their underground tunnels about 4 feet below the ground.
Behavior
The Allegheny mound ants are considered pests because they can kill the vegetation around them. Since they need to create large mounds that do not contain vegetation around, they will inject the surrounding with some formic acid, which will allow for the vegetation to die. Trees and shrubs are in danger when these mounds are established. If the Allegheny mound ant creates mounds in lawns, they will kill the grass and attack people if their nest is disturbed.
Food
These ants feed on a variety of insects that they will collect once they are above the ground. They can also collect honeydew from aphids and leafhoppers.
Life Cycle
The development of the Allegheny mound is faster compared to other ants. They have the ability to create and increase their colonies rapidly as it only takes two to three months for an egg to become adults. The worker ants are mostly responsible for taking care of the larvae. While other ant colonies have a single queen, this ant species have multiple queens that are responsible for producing more workers.
The colony will start with a single queen that needs to go below ground to lay her first eggs. After a couple of years, and if they are not disturbed, the queen’s colony will be able to make an above ground nest that will be used as a solar collector for the incubation of eggs and larvae. Once the colony is established, they will be able to create more colonies and may create a typical cluster of mounds that can contain five or more mounds that are close together.
Other Information and Tips
The control of the Allegheny mound ants can be difficult, especially if they have already built large mounds. Also, these ants can easily move and create a new colony if they are heavily disturbed. However, there are still some effective ways to control and properly eliminate these ants in your area. This will include continuously disturbing and destroying the mounds, getting rid of their food sources, and mound treatments. Mound treatments include dust treatment that must be applied to the mounds and its surrounding. It is also ideal to contact a professional pest control company for these ants they know how to properly and effectively get rid of these pests better than anyone.
Photo: Allegheny mound ant colony at Fort Custer by Jacob Enos, used under CC BY 2.0 / resized from original