By: Andrew Cheng

In June 2022, many people reported that ants had been found on the highest floors of New York City buildings, along with many other urban cities.

Katie Guhl lives in a spotless apartment on East 81st in New York City. After returning from a trip, she was livid to find swarms of ants in her kitchen. “There were no crumbs to be had,” she said. She’d never seen ants there before and had not expected to. Even more surprisingly, she lives on the 6th floor.

Melissa Russell Paige, who has lived in a Brooklyn apartment for eight years, said, “They just showed up one day. Never saw an ant even once.” Her neighbor also has the same problem.

A reporter living in New York City apartments said she had never seen those ants before. In May, they were found on the windowsill on the fifth floor of an elevator building in Manhattan. Later in the week, they were spotted walking across the living room and appearing under the couch.

This incident of ants is exciting for Samantha Kennett, a graduate student at Kennesaw State University in central Georgia in Dr. Clint Penick’s social insect lab. She researches urban and ecology and explicitly studies an ant called Lasius emarginatus. This kind of ant immigrated from Europe and was first spotted in New York in 2011.

The Lasius emarginatus are known as the “ManhattAnt” and have thrived in New York City. “My research focuses on understanding how this ant, now one of the most common ants in New York City, has been able to be so successful, surviving in highly urban habitats,” said Ms. Kennett.

She found Lasius emarginatus in the trees all up and down Broadway, as well as in midtown. “We found them in Times Square,” Kennett said. “They are everywhere.” She also mentioned that “It forages in trees,” Ms. Kennett said. “It climbs a lot. They found it in second-story buildings in Europe.” Now, as it expands its habitat, it appears to be scaling the structures of New York City.

Although this may explain why the ants are found on a high floor in the apartments, there is still much research to be done. Ms. Kennett has begun the online project, ManhattAnt, and hopes that New Yorkers will mark their sightings to assist in further understanding the ant and its growth.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/nyregion/in-nyc-apartments-the-ants-go-marching-up.html