Hawaii has a big problem: little fire ants that have begun quite literally raining down on people and stinging them — and it's reportedly changing life on the islands as residents know it.
In interviews with SFGate, Hawaiian officials described infestation scenes straight out of a horror flick, replete with people being bitten in their beds while sleeping, causing painful welts that can last for weeks.
"They’re changing the way of life for our residents here in Hawaii," Heather Forester of the University of Hawai'i's Hawaii Ant Lab told the Gate. "You used to be able to go out hiking and go to the beach. They can rain down on people and sting them."
"In heavily infested areas, the ants can actually move into people’s homes," she continued. "We have a lot of reports of them stinging people while they sleep in their beds."
Someone wrote about their encounter with fire ants in 2016This latest infestation, the Gate notes, appears to have begun on private property and spilled over a cliff and into a lush valley near the Wailua River that provides the ants with the opportunity to float downriver and create colonies elsewhere.
https://ournewlatitude.com/ant-attack/
Message from Doginventor /sI have been stung by 5 hornets at once, received dozens of mosquito bites in a day, and stood on ant ant hill once, but I have NEVER been attacked by insects like this. On our trip to Rainbow Falls in Kona Hawaii, we stopped at a beautiful lookout point. At one point I thought it would make a good picture to sit on a palm tree stretched out over the beach. Unknown to me, the tree was covered in thousands of tiny fire ants.
All I was wearing a bathing suit under a sundress. As I sat down and wrapped my arms and legs around the trunk of the tree I thought the tree was scratching me. Soon a piercing pain was spreading over my thighs. Once I realized what was happening, I quickly swatted at the ants, yelled at my sister to get off her tree, then proceeded to run a block uphill to our car. I stripped to my bathing suit in front of a stranger and poured water all over myself. I didn’t care how I looked, I was in so much pain. It felt like a Habanero pepper being rubbed over chaffed skin.
Sadly, my poor sister got eaten up too. Thankfully, our next stop was Rainbow Falls and dipping our burning legs into the cool pools of water soothed the pain. Our our way home we made a much needed stop at the conveince store to buy Benadryl and anti-itch cream. When I got home I wanted to know what exactly I got bit by so I looked it up. According to the Hawaiian Invasive Species Council, these fire ants are widespread to Hawaii, clear red in color, only 1mm in size, and pack a painful sting that can produce welts that last several weeks. Yup. I lived with those bug bites for the rest of our trip. After the raw, burning-like pain subsided, the bites were constantly itchy. I would take a dozen mosquito bites over a dozen fire ant bites any day. Lesson learned, do not sit on trees in Hawaii! ♦
