![]() The most concerning trader is perhaps Ants from Asia, for offering a range of obscure rainforest species now afforded a chance to spread outside Asia, plus major pests such as yellow crazy ants (£40 a colony) and tropical fire ants (£15). ![]() Gippeta and Bertelsmeiera identify this as a serious shortcoming. The European Union prohibits trade in some invasive animals, but no ants are banned. The latter include nine bull ant species. It sells ants from six continents to customers within Europe, offering a stocklist of 125 species from Asia, 33 from Africa and 21 from Australia. One can suppose that most Americans keeping fire ants live in regions that have them already, with risks arising when they move to a state such as Arizona without them.Īntstore (Ameisenshop) in Germany is an example of a large trader. ![]() He suggests slowing the colony before feeding by placing it in the fridge for an hour or two.Įscaped workers can’t found a new colony, but a tiny gap in a container will allow queens as well as workers to escape, and fire ant colonies often have many queens. His information sheet warns of their readiness to sting and that the “size and sheer number of the foraging worker-force can lead to many escapees during feeding”. That these products need regular application points to high risks of escapes.Īccording to Mack Pridgen of Tarheel Ants in the US, the red imported fire ant is one of the five main species kept in America. Ant traders sell ant-i-slip and fluon sprays to help stop ants climbing smooth surfaces to escape. The pet trade is well known as a source of invasive fish, birds and reptiles, and a contribution to ant problems can be expected next. The authors of that study, Jérôme Gippeta and Cleo Bertelsmeiera of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, note that ants are very easy to sell globally, because a queen, a few workers, and some brood can easily be delivered through standard mail. These unidentified sugar ants (Camponotus sp.) from Australia, ready for mailing abroad, are marketed on a German website. At least 57 species known to be invasive have entered the trade. These include the main species Australia is eradicating – the red imported fire ant ( Solenopsis invicta), electric ant ( Wasmannia auropunctata) and yellow crazy ant, plus others of grave concern such as the big-headed ant ( Pheidole megacephala) and tropical fire ant ( Solenopsis geminata). More than 20 countries have ant traders, with the largest concentrations in Europe, and others in Asia, North America, Australia and South Africa.Ī recent study of ant traders found them selling 13 of the 19 worst ant invaders listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In 2002 there were only a couple of websites in the world selling queen ants or ant colonies, now there are more than a hundred traders offering more than 500 ant species, largely for export. Given ants are about the worst category of invasive species there is, it is alarming to know that ants, including the worst ant species of all, are surging in popularity as pets, writes Tim Low. ![]()
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