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Originally Posted by Snugglebear  Wait, these can kill you? I just thought they stung a little bit. |
I think a lot of people mistake other small, biting red ants for real fire ants. If a real fire ant bites you, it's way more than a little sting. They get the name because it feels like you've been severely burned. Yeah though, if you get swarmed each ant will bite you multiple times and it can be enough to kill you. People die to them everyday, apparently. Just sounds like a terrible way to go.
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These highly aggressive ants will swarm in a few seconds. When a fire ant bites, it first grabs the skin with its mandibles. This anchors the ant so that it can thrust its abdominal stinger and venom into the victim’s skin. A fire ant delivers a very painful and burning sting to its victims. This fiery burning pain is intensified because of the likelihood of multiple bites or stings. It is for this reason that the fire ant got its name.
The problem is that fire ants do not bite or sting only once. In fact, one fire ant will sting relentlessly. This multiple stinging or biting (7 or 8 stings) is usually in a circular pattern around the area where the fire ant anchored itself. In addition, encounters with fire ants usually involve several or even up to hundreds of ants. Therefore, the amount of fire ant bites in an attack can be significant with each one of those fire ants stinging multiple times.
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Maybe not the deadliest insect alive or anything, but I think it still definitely qualifies as something not to be fucked with, especially since they are fairly common in the US.
