Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is to let you guys know of a very sneaky and rutheless predetor. I recently had ants invade my house during a dry spell here in Texas, during the course of one day they invaded my plated's tank and attacked him. I resucetated him twice yet I could not save him. Please be aware of this threat and that an invasion can become lethal in the course of a few hours. If anything I hope people can learn from this incident.

Take care,
Sera

I have had many battles with them from white footed ants to fire ants. They are all bad and a constant pain here in south florida.

Sorry to hear of your little lizard. I am sure others on here have had to deal with ants at one point.

Always a problem, especialy this year it seems, no fire ant but like you said those little black ants whatever they are called, man they produce and invade quick! Had to save my Kimms one day, but vasoline kkeps them away pretty well.
Robert

Yeah, these were the little black devils! I can't express my hatred. I tried the soapy water thing and that doesn't work, but vaseline makes sense... hmmm. I had to move all of my critters out of the room, get the exterminator to come and then I "Raided" the hell out of the outside of the house. Everything now has that "country fresh" scent to it.

Fire ants also come in black so not sure which you have invading. I typically get them along with the white footed black ants. If there were a very huge number of them it is probly the white footed black ants. They are a pain to get rid of.

Fire ants typically stay outside here unless someone has decided not to eat all of there food. The easy way to tell then is if they get on you and don't sting they are not fire ants. If they sting you like mad then they are.

vasaline or bug barrier does work, I also use various ant traps setup as a barrier around my reptile room and building.

Still waiting, did you see the results of the Rudi's you helped pic out?
Robert

I will take some of the big ones tom. after cleaning.

I did see your eggs very nice, loooks like atleast two in the pic are fertile. Hope you get many more chances with them.

Yes, Ants can be horrific predators - were they fire ants? I recently wrote an article about N.American ants and Varanus niloticus feeding behavior upon them:

Varanus niloticus (nile monitor): captive adult feeding on ants. (British) Herpetological Bulletin 85:29-30.

Sorry to learn of your lizards demise. Also some 'good' B-movies on ants: Them! (1954) and The Naked Jungle (1953). A really 'bad' ant movie includes "Empire of the Ants" (1973).

cheers,
mbayless

Oh, great! First I've got a hurricane coming, and the ants all want to come in when the ground is soaked, now you tell me about ant horror movies! I may not sleep tonight.....

Actually, my favorite bad critter horror movie has always been Night of the Leapus.... Giant killer bunny rabbits!!!!

Leslie

Hi Leslie,
Oh yeah, starring DeForest Kelly (aka Dr. McCoy of Star Trek)... I don't have that one, but have most of the other giant killer critter films:

Mammals (Willard, Ben, Deadly Eyes, Food of the Gods Pt. I& II, Pigs!, Colassal Man I-II).

Bugs (Them!, Deadly Mantis, Beginning of the end, Earth Vrs the spider, Naked Jungle, Tarantula, Kingdon of the Spiders, 8-legged freaks, ).

Plants (Day of the triffids, Navy vrs the Night monster).

Reptiles (Reptilicus, godzilla, Rodan, Gamera, 20,000 miles from Earth, Beast from 20,000 fathoms, Venom, Stanley, Ssss, Lair of the snake worm, Alligator people, Komodo, python, Anaconda, flying serpent, giant claw).

and a tonne of others to laugh and scare you...all good fun.

Good luck with the ants!
mbayless

Say it isn't so. And to think those nimrods in FT. meyers are trying to kill em. I say bring more Niles. I really loved that article a few days back about the niles and how they are a threat to alligators and gopher toroises,among other creatures. If you multiplied that population of nile monitors a 100 times it still wouldn't come close to the damage people and they're freakin' sub-divisions do to these species. You can't keep a gopher tortoise in this state for a pet, but if you are a developer you can bulldoze over as many as you want fo about$6000. And then they have audacity to try and tell everybody how our hobby is detrimental to the enviroment. I wonder who planted those maleluca trees and turned those cane toads loose too?

they stung me like mad (they got into my pants!)so I suppose they were fire ants, hosever the lizard killed was not a monitor, it was a gherrasaurus nigrolinetaus. I would be facinated to know if monitors handle them differently.
-----
1.0 Red ackie monitor (Frederick)
0.0.1 Bosc's monitor (don't know yet)
1.2 Chinese water dragons (Gimp, ?, Basil)
0.0.1 Day gecko (peter)
1.0 Green tree frog (bell)
1.0 Red albino corn snake (kirby)
1.0 Cavi (Gromit)
0.1 Eqyptian spiny mouse (Cleo)
0.1 Rat (Booger)
0.1 Giant african millipede (Zoe)
1.0 Beta (don't know yet)
0.1 Calico cat (Saffron)

ive had that problem to but none of my animals died. I live in california and when i lived near san francisco i had a black ant problem they would always get in my day geckos tank. now i live up near sacramento and the only ant problem ive had is some ants in my savannah monitors tank but they bever attacked him.But stuff happens sorry about your plated lizard that sucks.