Formication

Jesus, Mary and Joseph this is the stuff my nightmares are made of. Apparently "crazy raspberry ants" (their actual name!) are invading Houston and cannot be killed.

From the DMN:

"Voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area.

CRAZY RASBERRY ANTS
"The small, hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known by that name: "crazy," because they wander erratically instead of marching in lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who battled them early on. They're formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens."

SPREADING
"The ants, first spotted in Texas in 2002, have spread to five Houston-area counties – Harris, Brazoria, Galveston, Montgomery and Wharton. Scientists are not sure where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS
"They eat fire ants, but they also like plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs and eat the hatchlings of the Attwater prairie chicken. They bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.

ELECTRICAL DAMAGE
"They are attracted to electrical equipment. Scientists don't know why. The ants have ruined pumps, fouled computers and caused fire alarms to malfunction.

NO CONTROLS
"Exterminators say the ants – which are starting to emerge by the billions – appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.

RESEARCH
"The Texas Department of Agriculture is working with Texas A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants."

If these suckers make it to Dallas, I'm outta here.

Pinche ants.

*The guy in the photo is Tom Raspberry, the exterminator who first identified these ants as a problem and for whom they are named. I would like to have a chocolate of some sort named after me. Or a wine, that would be lovely.
(Photo from the Times Online, story by Chris Ayers)