The Argentine Ant on Mediterranean Shores (original) (raw)

The Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) is a dark, red-brown ant, only about 3 mm long with queens that can measure up to a cm. It is native to the Rio de la Plata river drainage basin in Northern Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Southern Brazil, where it lives in small, inconspicuous colonies like so many other ant species. It has become a major invasive species in many parts of the world where the climate is of Mediterranean type, first and foremost on the northern shores of the Western Mediterranean itself. The basis for its invasiveness is a tendency to form supercolonies, linked anthills with numerous queens, and un-antagonistic collaborative behavior between billions of members, even when they are unrelated.