Thev are ver) fond of quail: they 

 enter the pipped eggs to get them. 

 The ants often chase brooding hens 

 off their nests and eat their chicks. 



How They Develop 



To get a clear picture of how the 

 imported fire ant develops, it is neces- 

 sary to understand that three adult 

 forms exist: 



1. Winged fertile females 

 (queens), which lay the eggs. 



2. Winged fertile males, which 

 mate with the queens. 



3. Worker ants, which are wing- 

 less females and usually sterile. (The 

 few that are fertile lay eggs without 

 mating.) 



An ant colony begins when the 

 queen digs an underground chamber 

 (later enlarged into a mound) and 

 starts laying her eggs in clusters. 

 First she lays clusters of 10 to 15 eggs. 

 Later she gradually increases her out- 

 put to clusters of 75 to 125, laying 

 hundreds of eggs in all. 



The queen looks after her first egg 

 cluster almost constantly. She car- 

 ries it about wherever she goes. 



The eggs are smooth, shiny, and 

 white. The clusters resemble finely 

 ground meal. In 8 to 12 days the 

 eggs hatch into larvae. 



\\ hen the larvae appear, they are 

 ready to start feeding. They are 

 helpless, dirty -white grubs, and can 

 hardly move. They depend on the 

 queen and the workers. The queen 

 feeds her first larvae food that is 

 stored in her own body. \\ orkers 

 feed larvae of subsequent broods. 



The larvae transform to pupae. 

 Those that become worker ants 

 after the pupal stage change into 

 pupae in 6 to 12 days. Those that 

 later become winged females or 

 winged males take longer to develop. 



The pupae resemble the adult ants 

 in shape. It is easy to tell the dif- 



Cabbage stem damaged by imported fire ant. 



ferent forms apart. Those that will 

 be winged have paddle -like wing pads. 

 Adults emerge in 9 to 16 days. 



Appearance and Habits 



Of the three adult forms, the work- 

 ers, which are reddish to blackish red, 

 are most numerous. An average->izc 

 mound may contain 25,000 workers 

 and only a few dozen winged form-. 



The workers range from 1/8 to 1 1 

 inch in length. Most of the smaller 

 workers emerge from the queen's 

 first e£g cluster, and most of the 



CD 7 



larger ones from subsequent clusters. 



The workers forage for food, main- 

 tain the mound, and protect the 

 colony. The bigger workers perform 

 these functions more efficient!) than 

 the smaller one-. The) have more 

 powerful mandible- for biting and 

 chewing, and can store more fluid in 

 their stinger-. 



The fertile winged forms arc rarely 



