In article ,
Paul Simonite wrote:
The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

18" deep, and few ants nests go down much more. In the
UK, that is - the same does NOT apply in the tropics!

In the tropics some of the species of White Ant are a serious threat to
buildings. They chew the wood and use the pulp for mushroom growing.
They then eat the mushrooms. The method of control is to search for the
queen and destroy her. The colony then breaks up and, hopefully, dies
out.

White ants are not actually ants, and there are a few colonies that
have established in the UK. But, even with global warming and central
heating, they are VERY marginal here. Even in southern Europe (where
they are 'natural'), they aren't a major problem.

And, actually, they digest the wood more directly, because their
intestines contain appropriate bacteria. The ants that farm fungus
are true ants, not termites, and I am not sure how widespread they
are in Africa. Termites (white ants) are, certainly, and I can remember
all furniture standing in tins full of kerosene.

Safari ants are another kettle of fish! They bivouwac (Sp?) overnight
in ball shaped groups with the queen at the centre, each group can
number many hundreds of thousands of individuals. At daybreak the bivvy
breaks up and the ants form long columns consuming all living things in
their path. Obviously not every single organism is consumed, some
escaping. The columns move out from the bivvy in an arc and then bivvy
again. The next day the columns move in a different arc, eventually
coming full circle. This is a fascinating process to observe, but not
one for the faint hearted! Other tropical ants are capable of deep
excavations, probably to escape the heat of the baked earth.

It was the latter I was referring to, and it is not just the heat
but the low humidity.

I never encountered a major ant invasion (and it is not JUST safari
ants that do it), but got bitten many times. The experience makes
one fall over with laughter whenever people in this country complain
too much about ant bites :-)


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.