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Eldridge Adams: Fire Ant Warrior
| Article
# : |
20716 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1992 |
3,405 Words |
| Author
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Michael McClelland
Michael McClelland is the Tallahassee bureau chief for
Florida
Environments magazine. He is also newsroom adviser to
Florida
Flambeau, an independent daily newspaper serving the college
communities of Florida State and Florida A&M universities. |
Science in the making is seldom fully appreciated. Take, for example, a parking lot beneath the blazing sun in the Florida panhandle. Here several researchers are gathering fire ant queens. By evening, they and their weary colleagues will have collected some 15,000 queens, the raw material for the young entomologist Eldridge Adams' field experiments, which he hopes will someday provide a fuller understanding of the ever-present pests.
Adams is working one of Tallahassee's best fire ant collection spots, a trash-strewn parking lot behind a local grocery store. For several minutes now, a young man sitting in a parked car has watched Adams and his colleagues dashing around the lot, scooping the half-inch-long ants into glass-and-cotton collecting tubes.
Finally the curious onlooker can take no more. He drives over to Adams, rolls down his window and asks the question that has obviously been causing him considerable concern.
"Hey--are y'all going to eat those things?"
The genial Adams laughs as he recalls that and similar incidents. His collecting activity often draws concerned glances and curious comments from passerby. But inevitably, he says, that curiosity turns to strong support when onlookers learn Adams is after ways to understand and control the ubiquitous fire ant.
"People seem interested and supportive that the work is being done", Adams says with a smile. "And they've never objected to us removing fire ants from their property. They want them out of there."
The Invading Army
Fire ants are relative newcomers to the United States, though a much less noxious cousin is native to North America. This new breed of invader, Solenopsis invicta, probably came into Mobile Bay abroad ships from South America around the time of World War II.
In less than 50 years, the hardy little creature has firmly established itself in its new home. The bane of barefoot boy and farmer alike, fire ants now range across the entire Southeast and parts of the Southwest. Experts believe the ant will move up the East Coast as far as the Chesapeake Bay before the colder climate stops its advance. It has been spotted in California and will probably move at
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