Know your pests

Odorous House Ant

This species is a scavenger/predator ant that will eat most household foods, especially those that contain sugar, and other insects. Indoors they will colonize near heat sources or in insulation. In hot and dry situations, nests have been found in house plants and even in the lids of toilets. Outdoors they tend to colonize under rocks and exposed soil. They appear, however, to form colonies virtually anywhere, in a variety of conditions. They can trail extensive distances (though their trails are rarely longer than 50 feet), usually along landscape edges. Colonies range in size from 100-10,000, and house several queens (as many as 200, in some instances). They are non-aggressive. While queens can lay as many as 20-30 eggs in single day, they lay only 1-2 (or less) eggs per day on average over long periods of time. Typical time to adult phase of development is 34–38 days. It is believed that queens and male ants are only produced in larger colonies.

In experiments where T. sessile workers were confined in an area without a queen, egg-laying (by the workers) was observed, though the workers destroyed any prepupa that emerged from the eggs. Odorous house ants have been observed collecting honeydew to feed on from aphids, scale insects, and membracids.They appear to be more likely to invade homes after rain (which washes away the honeydew they collect).Odorous house ants appear to be highly tolerant of other ants, with compound nests consisting of multiple ant species (including T. sessile) having been observed.