Texas Ants Living In Roof

Ants in the walls.

Texas ants living in roof.

If there are trees near your home that may be a potential source for ants gaining access to your roof pruning may be necessary. Ants belong to the family of insects called formicidae and are in the order hymenoptera which also includes bees sawflies and wasps. It commonly infests buildings especially in the warmer more humid parts of the state. Once your roof is clean return to the problem areas and caulk the holes and other areas of concern.

They live in colonies preferring to build the mounds in open sunny areas. You can also spray the area with ant spray to help keep the ants from returning. The reproductive members of an ant colony are the only members with wings. These ants are reddish brown in color and are most recognizable by the way they move.

First discovered around houston in 2002 tawny crazy ants also known as raspberry crazy ants arrived in texas from south america. Some of the more common species of ants found living in the southeast region of texas include. They often appear to prefer moist decaying wood wood with dry rot or old termite galleries. There are over 291 species of ants hymenoptera.

Ant colonies are often located in cracks and crevices between structural timbers but the ants can also tunnel into structural wood to form nesting galleries although this is rare for species occurring in texas. Caulk spray the area. Carpenter ants camponotus spp. Nest hollow trees logs posts landscaping timbers wood in homes several hundred to thousands parent colony satellites eat live insects honeydew fungus associated with wood scavengers baits dusts sprays university of minnesota.

This dark brown ant has long legs and antennae is extremely fast moving. Formicidae in texas see the common ant genera of texas a full color identification key to the common ant genera of texas. Depending upon distribution and cold weather conditions ants may be as likely to nest outdoors as indoors especially in many parts of the warmer more southerly portions of their distribution also the preferred indoors locations and food preferences of the ants listed below may vary to some degree since there is a lot of species specific variability among ants. Red imported fire ants infest the eastern two thirds of texas and all of the southeastern united states see geographic distribution of fire ants.

When a colony is mature the reproductive ants emerge to find mates and create a new colony. Mature colonies build large dome shaped mounds that can contain more than 200 000 ants.