Latin Name: Camponotus spp.
Rainy days are our favorite until you consider the attraction it could create for insects like carpenter ants.
Have you ever stumbled on a large black or reddish ant around your kitchen, and you are wondering what kind of insect it is? Carpenter ants are wood-destroying pests that do a great deal in any home they find themselves in. They are active insects that perform well in moist and wet areas. They do not eat wood but have a way of chewing on them and use them to make their nest by depositing them at the entrance of their colony.
They prefer to attack wood softened by fungus. Without proper care, it could further damage that wood. They have a long life span. Therefore, giving them enough time to infest causes significant damage to the home.
Let’s explore what they look like, what they survive on, and some tips on preventing them.
Carpenter ants are one of the biggest ants in North America. Their workers are usually about 12 mm long for some species, and their queens are about 20 mm.
Carpenter ants are polymorphic and belong to the genus Camponotus, meaning they have varying sizes in the colony. Carpenter ants have black, red, dark brown, red and black, and yellow coloration depending on the hierarchy, ranging from 3.4 to 13 mm. They are differentiated mainly by their round thorax, heart-shaped head, and circle of hairs around the anus (best seen under a lens). They also have a narrow waist, bent antennae, and hind wings shorter than the fore wings (only in their queens and reproductive males). Their wings are usually transparent or light brown.
The black carpenter ants have dark brown and black colors, while the red and black carpenter have dark brown and black bodies with the red-brown thorax. However, there are species in the United States that do not have reliable identifying characteristics. Still, three significant castes in the carpenter ant’s colony help to differentiate them. The largest is the queen, the males are the smaller, and we can classify the worker ants by size into major, media, and minors.
You can find carpenter ants on dead and decaying wood or trees, logs, stumps, dead branches, and nests located in the soil. Other areas are nests in moist building materials. They can also build their homes in houses, telephone poles, window sills, porch roofs, wood in soil, and man-made wooden structures. Carpenter ants prefer to infest moist and rotting wood because it makes it easy for them to hollow in them and produce a colony. Also, the moisture helps their eggs to survive.
Carpenter ants are not wood eaters like termites because they lack digestive enzymes to break down cellulose. They survive on several plants and animal materials, including sweet substances like honeydew from aphids. They also feed on body fluids and proteins for dead and live insects. They mainly forage at night. They require an external source for moisture from the soil, rooftops, or leaky plumbing.
These ants can go out to search for food up to 100 yards from their nests and bring it back to the perch for those that did not go out to search for food.
Like many ants, carpenter ants will only bite man when he feels threatened. They will also bite when they feel like their nests are in danger. In a bid to defend itself, it can bite creatures, including man. For instance, if you are trying to smash a carpenter ant and you miss, you may suffer a bite if you try again. This one is more serious because, in this case, multiple carpenter ants will attack you to protect their home. Hence, if you are trying to remove carpenter ants from your home, you must tread carefully.
The carpenter ant has strong mandibles such that when they bite, you will feel a good amount of pain, many times like a sensation of burning. Their bites usually break the skin, causing a small amount of blood.
The first warning sign of carpenter ants is to see one. You must be on the lookout to identify them because they are not ones to invade your pantries and food cabinets. However, when they are about to invade your home, they come with their workers first. They eat all kinds of things and do not need to be in your kitchen to survive. So look out for their workers in the home. They are black and sometimes mistaken for pavement ants, which are 1/8 an inch.
Once the workers have established that an area is good for them, you will see dust under the holes that lead to their hideouts. Look out for such sites at your basements, garage, and secluded areas in the homes.
Having considered what the carpenter ant looks like and the harm it can cause, we must now see how to prevent the infestation of carpenter ants. To prevent red, black, or brown carpenter ants;
If you suspect these pests are in or around your home, give us a call for a Free Home Inspection!
