By: Zhile Chen

In the higher floors of apartments, swarms of black dots crawl on all sorts of surfaces, when before the surfaces were devoid of any insects. The surfaces had been left spotless. There should have been no reason for the ants to come.

And yet, that is what is happening in the apartments of New York.

Ants were never commonly found in the higher floors of apartments, as they usually prefer to be in places with soil and apartments don’t usually have much soil in them. But now, a species from Europe have found homes in apartments.

On the r/Brooklyn forum on Reddit, a victim of the ant infestations wrote, “Woke up this morning to ants crawling around my living room. I live on the 3rd floor and have never had problems with any insects.” Another witness said “I worked in an apartment building, and the 25th floor had ants in Midtown.”

Scientists like Samantha Kennett, a graduate from Kennesaw State University, who study urban ant ecology, are studying the phenomenon. Ms. Kennett specializes in the ant species Lasius emarginatus, which first came from Europe to the U.S. in 2011. These ants have been nicknamed the ManhattAnt and have been flourishing in New York.

For confirmation that the ants are indeed Lasius emarginatus, they investigated pictures of the ants and compared it to the pictures witnesses have taken. What they have seen are indeed the Lasius emarginatus.

This ant has impressive climbing skills. Normally they climb trees, but as they are adapting to their new habitat, these ants have recently started climbing up apartment buildings and climbing in through the windows.

The ants have spread to New Jersey and Long Island and right now, Ms. Kennett is starting a project called Project ManhattAnt, which people who have experienced the ant infestations submit data about the ants.

Luckily for New Yorkers, Dr. Rob Dunn, a professor in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University, thinks that the ants are not going to stay in the apartments as the ants “nests under logs and in all the studies we’ve done, it prefers to have some natural habitat.

Oh, and don’t worry. The Lasius emarginatus is not here to eat prize-winning cake and cookies. Ms. Kennett explains, “This is one of the things that I’m trying to figure out. When ants are living in really urban habitats, they tend to eat a lot of human foods and they’re able to shift their diets towards more human foods. But this ant, even though it’s living in the most urban habitat, does not appear to be consuming human foods.”

Instead, the ants are more interested in keeping your garden pest-free, as the ants eat honeydew and other insects.

For people affected by the ant infestations, Jerry Walsh of Mayday Hardware in Prospect Heights recommends that they not use powerful ant baits, as “It’s a little too potent to use indoors because the ant does not drop dead on the spot. They will carry that poison wherever they travel. So, you don’t want that going over your clean dishware. You’ll think that you have a 24-hour stomach virus when indeed what you’re experiencing is a mild case of stomach poisoning.”

But currently, the New Yorkers are in luck, as the ManhattAnt has become less active, and is invading people’s homes less often now. They forage greatly from April to June, but slow down in July.

Source: The New York Times In N.Y.C Apartments the Ants Go Marching Up