Fire ants resemble ordinary ants. Worker fire ants are dark, small, highly variable in size, aggressive, and sting relentlessly.
Workers have the same body proportions from the tiniest to the largest. Head width never exceeds the abdomen width, even in the largest workers. The imported fire ants are very aggressive and have been known to repeatedly attack animals that intrude on their nests. The red imported fire ant is particularly aggressive.
They are known to attack people, plants, and animals. They also cause damage to homes, buildings, air-conditioning units, and telephone wires. There are two kinds of red imported fire ants: the single queen and multiple queen forms. Workers in single queen colonies are territorial, foraging within their territory.
Workers from multiple queen colonies are not territorial; they move freely from one mound to another, which as resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of mounds per acre. Areas infested with single queen colonies contain 40 to mounds per acre rarely more than 7 million ants per acre.
In areas with multiple queen colonies, there may be or more mounds and up to 40 million red fire ants per acre. Total time from egg to adult averages 30 days, workers live up to days, and queens live two to six years. The imported fire ant will not only forage for food, such as small insects, dead animals, and sweet materials such as plant secretions, but will kill insects and small animals to feed.
