Houston, we've got a problem: PC-eating ants

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 16 May 2008 at 09:11

Houston has been hit with a computer bug like no other: a swarm of ants that are eating through electronics.

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The "Crazy Raspberry Ants" are believed to have arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship, and are causing widespread mayhem.

For some unknown reason they are attracted to electrical equipment, which is causing problems for residents in the Deep South. The ants have destroyed PCs in homes and offices, ruined pumps at a sewage treatment plant and even taken a fancy to homeowners' gas meters, according to reports from the Associated Press.

"If you open a computer, you would find a cluster of ants on the motherboard and all over," said Tom Raspberry, the owner of Budget Pest Control and the man the ants have been named after. "You'd get 3,000 or 4,000 ants inside and they create arcs. They'll wipe out any computer," he told Computerworld.

The Johnson Space Center has reportedly called in pest control experts to make sure the little critters don't start chomping their way through NASA's computer systems. Although, according to Raspberry, he's already seen colonies on the NASA site.

"With the computer systems they have in there, it could devastate the facility," he said. "If these ants got into the facility in the numbers they have in other locations, well, it would be awful. I've been in this business for 32 years and this is unlike anything I've ever seen. Anything. When you bring in entomologists from all over the United States and they're in shock and awe, that shows you what it's like."

So what should worried PC owners be looking for? "They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," Patsy Morphew of Pearland, told AP. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

You've been warned.