Katie Guhl, a New York City resident, came home to an unpleasant surprise. When she returned from a wedding in New Orleans and a Memorial Day Gathering in New Jersey, she found a throng of ants crawling everywhere in her kitchen. Guhl, rightfully so, was furious. Surprisingly, she never had any problems with ants before.
“There were no crumbs to be had,” she said.
With ants in NYC Apartments becoming more problematic, scientists infer that a species from Europe have traveled into people’s homes, which are commonly found on the upper floors above the streets. Guhl, a victim of the species, says that her apartment is on the sixth floor of her building.
Samantha Kennett, a graduate of Kennesaw State University who now studies ant ecology, may have answers for worried residents.
Ms. Kennett specifically studies an ant called the Lasius emarginatus, a European immigrant that probably arrived in New York, and its first sighting was in 2011. Even though the species is foreign to the United States, it adapted quickly. Now, the species can be found everywhere, even in Times Square. The little ant with a “ reddish-brown thorax and a dark brown head and abdomen” also has a nickname: the ManhattAnt (Stewart 2).
The ManhattAnt is extremely “upwardly mobile”, which is why they cano be found on the upper floors of apartments.
How many ManhattAnts there are? As we see more ants spread into parts of New Jersey and even Long Island, they will soon be the most common species in the eastern parts of America. Unfortunately, residents of New York City Apartments won’t be seeing the last of them. Who knows, they might even take over the world!
“There were no crumbs to be had,” she said.
With ants in NYC Apartments becoming more problematic, scientists infer that a species from Europe have traveled into people’s homes, which are commonly found on the upper floors above the streets. Guhl, a victim of the species, says that her apartment is on the sixth floor of her building.
Samantha Kennett, a graduate of Kennesaw State University who now studies ant ecology, may have answers for worried residents.
Ms. Kennett specifically studies an ant called the Lasius emarginatus, a European immigrant that probably arrived in New York, and its first sighting was in 2011. Even though the species is foreign to the United States, it adapted quickly. Now, the species can be found everywhere, even in Times Square. The little ant with a “ reddish-brown thorax and a dark brown head and abdomen” also has a nickname: the ManhattAnt (Stewart 2).
The ManhattAnt is extremely “upwardly mobile”, which is why they cano be found on the upper floors of apartments.
How many ManhattAnts there are? As we see more ants spread into parts of New Jersey and even Long Island, they will soon be the most common species in the eastern parts of America. Unfortunately, residents of New York City Apartments won’t be seeing the last of them. Who knows, they might even take over the world!
