http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/us...html?th&emc=th
Houston Journal
A Pest Without a Name, Becoming Known to Ever More 
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Bob Yeo and his son, also named Bob, near the insects they call “running ants” in the backyard of their home in Pearland, a suburb of Houston.
By
RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: May 16, 2008
HOUSTON — Look out, Texas Gulf Coast, here comes Paratrechina pubens, or something like that.
Skip to next paragraph Related Exotic Texas Ant (urbanentomology.tamu.edu)" Enlarge This Image 
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Tom Rasberry, an exterminator, is said to have discovered the ants in 2002. He offered to lend his name to the pest.
Enlarge This Image 
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
The ants tending their eggs after being disturbed.
Scientists do not quite know what to call them, they are so new. But folks in the damp coastal belt south of Houston have their own names (some of them printable) for the little invaders now seemingly everywhere: on the move underfoot; infesting woodlands, yards and gardens; nesting in electrical boxes and causing shorts; and even raising anxiety at Hobby Airport and the Johnson Space Center.
“We call them running ants,” said Diane Yeo, a homeowner in suburban Pearland, turning over a planter by her swimming pool to reveal a seething carpet of ants, yes, running, each about the size of the letter “i” on this page.
That was not the worst of it. “Looks like they’re carrying eggs,” said her husband, Bob.
The ant is a previously unknown variety with a staggering propensity to reproduce and no known enemies. The species, which bites but does not sting, was first identified here in 2002 by a Pearland exterminator, Tom Rasberry, who quickly lent his name to the find: the crazy rasberry ant.
“I sprayed some pesticide just to knock them down,” Mr. Rasberry recalled on Thursday. “But the next year I went from seeing a couple thousand to millions of them.”
Mr. Rasberry demonstrated in a patch of woods not far from his business, Budget Pest Control, that the ants were swarming under every clod of grass and over every tree branch and limb.
And the ants’ seasonal gestation period, which reaches its peak in the summer, is just beginning, said Paul Nester, a program specialist for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service of
Texas A&M University.
“They’re the ant of all ants,” said Dr. Nester, who said they had infested five coastal counties, “and are moving about half a mile a year.” But he said broad areas of Texas and beyond were probably not threatened because the ants preferred the warmth and moistness of the coast.
Variants of the species found in Colombia have been known to asphyxiate chickens and even attack cattle by swarming over their eyes, nasal passages and hooves, according to the Center for Urban and Structural Entomology at Texas A&M, which is conducting much of the research on the ants. It lists some of the findings on its Web site:
urbanentomology.tamu.edu/ants/exotic_tx.cfm.
Jason Meyers, a doctoral student in urban entomology at Texas A&M who is writing his dissertation on the ants, described them as enigmatic and confirmed that they were discovered by Mr. Rasberry. They belong to the genus Paratrechina, like others seen in Colombia, the Caribbean and Florida, Mr. Meyers said, but are different enough for entomologists to only guess at their species, listing them for now as “near” pubens.
“It’s a very fecund species, with multiple queens,” Mr. Meyers said.
The ants often eat fire ants, with which they are sometimes compared, and they “outcompete” fire ants for the food supply and reproduce far faster, Mr. Meyers said.
They are vulnerable to some pest control poisons — Mr. Rasberry uses products containing the chemicals fipronil and chlorfenapyr — but given the ants’ staggering proliferation and environmental restrictions on the products, not enough of the chemicals can be put down to make a difference, Mr. Meyers said.
Some might think the infestation an exterminator’s dream, but it is not so, said Mr. Rasberry. While an ordinary treatment might cost $85 every three months, treating for the rasberry ants costs up to $600, he said. Yet the efforts are so arduous and ineffective and have left customers so dissatisfied “they are actually costing me money,” Mr. Rasberry said.
Downtown Houston seems to have been spared, though the ants have been spotted scurrying thickly across suburban roads. But news accounts of the scourge have spread widely, said Frank Michel, spokesman for Mayor Bill White.
“The Russians are concerned,” Mr. Michel said. “I got a call from Moscow wanting to know if
NASA was safe.”
“I reassured the Russians we’re O.K.,” he said.
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