Don't play with fire ants, especially in Africa, they can 'turn' your body into Sashimi!

Fire ants are an invasive species, originally brought to the United States from South America in the 1930s. Since then, they have spread north to much of the southeastern United States. During periods of heavy rain or flooding, entire colonies of fire ants can gather together to form rafts that will remain afloat for weeks. Or when searching for prey, they can gather together to build "fortresses" and "highways".

In August 2008, a man walking his dog after a flood in Chuluota, east Florida came across a colony of fire ants. He was attacked by them and immediately went into anaphylactic shock. However, when he was taken to the hospital, the man was pronounced dead.

In June 2006, Janet Shiansky, a 68-year-old South Carolina woman, went into anaphylaxis and died after being attacked by fire ants while gardening, according to ABC News. Some ants ran up to her shoe and bit her foot. Her husband brushed them off to treat the sting with ammonia.

When he returned to check on her a few minutes later, he found her lying unconscious on the bed with her sunglasses still on her face. At the hospital, doctors discovered her brain had begun to swell and died the next day.

"It's a severe allergic reaction. The victim's throat will swell and people will literally die of asphyxiation," explains entomologist Mike Raupp. Fortunately, most people don't react that way.

Ants can be an inch long

Deadly Ants in Australia

Fire ants are related to Australia's Jack jumping ants, which are most common in southeastern Australia and Tasmania, where they kill more people annually than spiders, snakes, wasps and sharks combined. The ants can be an inch (2.54 cm) long, red and black with yellow and orange legs, and when disturbed they will jump, hence their name.

Jack jumping ant nests often hide under rocks. They do not bite but sting their victims with venom, similar to wasps. The victim's reaction will be similar to that of a fire ant bite, including: local swelling and redness develop, followed by white pustules and blisters. For people with allergies, they can suddenly stop breathing and lead to death.

Jack jumping ant nests often hide under rocks.

Deadly Ants in Africa

But the scariest ant species is undoubtedly the siafu, or African safari ant, also known as the army ant. These ants are native to central and eastern Africa and form colonies of up to 20 million individuals. This species of ant is most dangerous to humans during periods of drought. They will ally with each other and form armies of 50 individuals and attack across the countryside in search of food.

 The most feared ant is definitely the army ant.

However, humans can still easily avoid the onslaught of these armies because they travel at a speed of about 60 feet (nearly 13 m) an hour. These troops are protected by a special class of warrior ants. They have a huge head with large, pincer-like molars with amazing cutting ability.

Vết cắn của những con kiến chiến binh này rất đau và vì hàm của chúng rất mạnh. Ngay cả khi con kiến bị tách ra thành hai mảnh thì đầu của chúng vẫn được giữ lại ở vị trí mà nó đang cắn. Mặc dù thức ăn chủ yếu của chúng thường ăn giun đất, nhưng những đội quân lớn có thể giết chết được bọ cạp sở hữu nọc độc chết người, hay thậm chí là các động vật có vú nhỏ và đôi khi là cả trẻ em.

Người Maasai sử dụng những đội quân đặc biệt này để loại bỏ các loài sâu bệnh trên cánh đồng.

A Texan blogger, who has lived in East Africa for more than 10 years, explains: "When they come to a house, they will flood the inside of the house. The ants will eat everything in sight and move. They eat very little of our usual food, but they will eat all the mice, scorpions, spiders, etc. They will kill and eat dogs and cats if they are also trapped in the house."

Interestingly, however, the Maasai (A semi-nomadic Nilotic ethnic group living in Kenya and northern Tanzania) use these special armies to eliminate pests in the fields and sign parasites in their house. Families live in houses made of special earth and armies of ants are free to enter and leave their homes for a few days. Missionaries living in Africa did the same thing.

Other indigenous groups in East Africa also use these ants' amazing biting abilities to suture wounds, by having the ants bite each side of the wound, creating a natural form of suture.

Use ants to suture the wound.

Ants are wonderful animals. Drop something appetizing on the floor and they'll quickly build an efficient highway from their nest and return to bring the crumbs home.

This ability is so remarkable that in the 1990s, computer scientists began to wonder if they could mimic the behavior of ants in computer programs designed to solve complex problems. are not.

Nowadays, ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms are widely used to solve problems where many components need to be combined in some optimal way: whether it is route decision delivery of a convoy of trucks or the timetable of doctors in a hospital.