White Footed Ants

They don’t bite; they don’t sting; but they sure get into everything.

The white footed ant is the most notorious recent invader of Florida. Originally a native of Southern Japan and its neighboring islands, this ant specie has been on the move north and west from southeast Florida. Identified by entomologist Mark Deyrup in 1991, the white footed ants are believed to have settled in the Homestead, Florida area in the mid 1980s.

Originally thought to be a minor problem, the white footed ant reached pest alert status in 1998. They have now been confirmed throughout Florida and in areas of Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas.

The white footed ants' obvious success in adapting and colonizing in new locations is cause for great concern.

White footed ant biology:

1. White footed ant Colonies grow quickly and may exceed over two million inhabitants in each colony.
2. It is believed that in some instances, up to 50 % of the colony members may be female reproductives.
3. They create swarmers for mating flights, which provide them with much greater range for initiating new colonies. They also bud; a process by which workers and female reproductives separate from the main colony and establish new ones.
4. Unlike most ant species, the foraging workers do not regurgitate the food they have eaten to provide to the nursery and non-foraging ants in the nest. Instead they digest the food and produce a trophic egg. It is a unique unfertilized egg which provides all the nourishment the white footed ants require. The foraging workers, while providing the close to perfect food source to the colony, also filter out much of the pesticides that may have been present in the original food.
5. White footed ants are strongly attracted to sweets although they do require proteins, eat dead insects and have been observed attacking termites, worms and other small prey. For the most part, they are generally found foraging in great numbers where carbohydrate-producing plants, crops, and other organisms are. They will protect and farm aphids, mealybugs, and scale for the purpose of harvesting their honeydew, the end result leading to crop and plant damage.

A white footed ant structural invasion is not an experience you want to have. You have to truly see it to believe it. The white footed ant is without a doubt one of the top six non-native most invasive ants in Florida today. Once they are inside, they are close to impossible to eradicate. They invade wall voids, outlets, appliances, pantries and just about every nook and cranny you can imagine.

White footed ants are dark brown to brownish black and appear to be little black ants from a distance. Their large numbers foraging make their presence known quickly. They do not actually have white feet; their tibia and tarsi are light yellow.

White Footed Ant Control

If this ant has made it into your home or facility, you should contact a qualified professional pest control service, or be prepared to make a disciplined "do-it-yourself" effort.

Do not spray insecticides in your environment.

The best way to stop this invader is outside of your home:

1. Keep bushes and trees trimmed back from structures.
2. Keep moisture sources around the exterior to a minimum.
3. Install Ant Pro bait dispensers around the exterior of your property, contact us for guidance at (941) 445-4252 or contact [email protected].