1. Bulldog ants were seized
On April 18, the Customs issued a notice saying that the Shandong Customs Post Office seized a batch of illegally imported live ants, a total of 38, including 23 bulldog ants and 15 humpback ants.
This batch of ants entered our country by mail in a foam box, which was surrounded by kraft paper on the bottom and a warm bag on the top, which was stuffed with buffers and 7 insulation bags, and each insulation bag contained 4-5 tin foil-wrapped test tubes, a total of 32. The bottom of each tube is filled with a little water, separated from the ants by cotton, and in the middle space, in addition to the ants, there is some food, and the test tube mouth is simply sealed with cotton and tape.
Pit bulldog ants are known as "the world's most dangerous ants", once they breed in a certain place, establish a community, cause great damage to the local ecology, and have been listed as banned species by many countries, so who is mailed to China, and for what purpose? The relevant departments are investigating.
2, pit bull ants in Australia to make waves
Bulldog ants, also known as bull ants and inch ants, have a reddish-brown head and thorax, a black tail in the back half, a jagged sharp palate and hard stings, and a brownish-yellow upper jaw, which is eye-catching and recognizable. Unlike other ants, the bulldog ant has weaker chemical perception (smell, taste), but it has strong visual ability, can clearly find prey 2 meters away, which is about equivalent to people seeing objects 20 kilometers away, and it is not too much to describe it as "clairvoyant".
There are about 90 known species of pit bull ants, with the exception of a few living in New Caledonia, the rest in Australia. Bulldog ants are one of the largest ants in the world, adult pit bull ants with a body length of 1.5 cm and a large length of 4 cm, many juvenile pit bull ants are larger than the vast majority of ants in China.
The bulldog ant, which is discolored and classified as a dangerous intruder by many countries, stems from its enormous destructive power and adaptability.
Let's start with the destructive power of the bulldog ant. Pit bulldog ants are extremely particular about feeding, and do not eat solid food in adulthood, relying on the juice of their prey to feed their stomachs, and the remaining meat is used to feed the larvae. The most abundant of the pit bull ants is the Tasmanian inch ant, which uses honey and sweets as a source of nutrients.
So it's almost hard to find "sweeteners" near their burrows, supposedly because they secrete a substance that kills the flowers. Whenever food is scarce, they often move en masse, and whenever a new environment means that a killing is about to begin.
The pit bull ant attacks prey, usually clamping the insect with its hard upper jaw and then biting quickly and non-stop; if it encounters a strong opponent, it stings and releases toxins. Biologists have pointed out that the toxin of the bulldog ant can kill an adult in 15 minutes. The opening chapter mentions that the bulldog ant has good eyesight, so in the dark, night environment, the bulldog ant often chooses to launch a surprise attack when the prey rests, and with the stinger, it is almost hand to hand.
In addition, adult pit bulldog ants are grumpy and often fight with each other, so most of them like to fight alone, but when they encounter strong enemies, especially when attacking caves, bulldog ants will quickly assemble and launch wave after wave of attacks on the enemy, most of the time the enemy will flee.
Worse, pit bull ants are somewhat similar to red fire ants, not only in their mouths where the plant's flowers, melons, juices, and other sweet spots are strong. They also often run into distribution boxes, street lamps, public indicators inside the blind toss, from time to time to bite the aging cable rubber, often causing power outages or even short circuits. Of course, attacks on humans are more commonplace.
According to Australian media reports, at least a dozen people are bitten by bulldog ants every year and lose their lives: some are infected by the toxin of pit bulldog ants and even have fever and trembling all over the body, like a hot current circulating throughout the body, and then they are weak and paralyzed until the pulse disappears, the whole process is only 7/8 minutes at the shortest; some are bitten by pit bull ants and cause other diseases. In addition, tens of thousands of people are not seriously injured by pit bulldog ants every year.
Let's talk about the breeding and adaptability of pit bull ants. Unlike hundreds of thousands of ant colonies, pit bull ants only need a few hundred to establish a colony, which means they don't reproduce like red fire ants. In fact, it is precisely because of the large size and large amount of food intake of bulldog ants that once the number is too large, it will cause insufficient food supply and inhibit the expansion of the population.
Bulldog ants inhabit Australia for a long time and are more suitable for breeding in subtropical, tropical and other temperature environments. Due to the large size and aggressive characteristics of pit bull dog ants, they are often collected and bred by some ant lovers. Around 2020, many Taiwanese media reported that many young people breed pit bull ants and breed well. That is to say, pit bull ants have no problems in habitat and breeding in Hainan, Guangdong, Yunnan and other places in China.
3. Expansion of bulldog ants
In fact, the number of pit bull ants in Australia is not widespread, and even the number is decreasing.
Ant lion is a domineering, seemingly powerful giant animal, but in fact it is a slightly larger insect than the bulldog ant, commonly known as the sand monkey, is the sworn enemy of the bulldog ant. In general, bulldog ants can be found wherever pit bull ants are active.
Perhaps because the lion knows the power of the bulldog ant toxin, the lion ant hunts the bulldog ant by setting traps: digging a funnel-shaped trap in the sand, usually placing some food above the trap, and when the hungry bulldog ants are foraging, they step into the trap and give the lion ants lunch.
The crux of the matter is that other countries do not deal with predators of pit bull ants, and once the invasion number will expand rapidly, bringing disaster to the local vegetation, insects and even the entire ecology.
Original: Old High