Well, it’s another beautiful day in the sunshine state. A bit warm for my liking, but hey, at least the bugs will love it! Speaking of the bugs, after such a mild and short winter you just know that they’ll be swarming our beloved penninsula. So today, we’re going to cover 3 of the common Florida pests you can expect to see this year.
Common Florida Pests: Fire Ants
If you’ve ever found ants crawling across the counter or noticed a trail of them on the bathroom floor, you’re not alone. Ants often enter homes during the warmer months in search of water and food. This makes them the #1 nuisance pest in America. With the summer season upon us, now is the perfect time to learn about the most common ant-infested areas in a home and how to prevent an unwanted infestation.
If you have a few ants crawling around your kitchen or pantry, it may be no big deal. Nesting ants that enter your house to forage for food aren’t too much of a problem. They can crawl up vertical surfaces and get in through some pretty tiny holes. But if those ants you see in the kitchen came from a colony inside your walls, that could be bad, especially if they are fire ants.
It’s probably not a surprise the kitchen is considered a favorite ant hangout. In addition to food access, the sink provides a water source that ants need to survive. If you’re lax about immediately cleaning up crumbs and spills, you may be inviting ants in.
Fire ants are difficult to control for several reasons: the colonies are often very large and extend under the ground a great distance. Colonies often have multiple queens, so they can recover if a part of the colony and a queen or two have been killed, and they often occur in large numbers, so that when you have eliminated one colony another will likely move in to occupy the space.
Common Florida Pests: Deer Fly
Their wings are clear, but with dark bands or patches. Their bodies are gray or light brown, and some species have yellow and black stripes. Distinctively, deer flies have large, brightly colored eyes and antennae larger than their heads.
Like the horse fly, the Florida deer fly feeds on the blood of humans and other animals. Warm weather brings them out in droves, and they rely on color, movement, or good old CO2 output to find their victims.
The pests rarely enter homes because they prefer moist habitats like marshes, woodland ponds and streams and, unfortunately, there are very few practical methods that will prevent or control deer flies around the home.
Deer flies use their sharp mouthparts to inflict painful bites. While they do not usually have long-term effects, bites can cause allergic reactions in some people. In addition, deer flies occasionally carry diseases like tularemia and can transfer the disease to humans through thei bite.
Deer flies are plentiful in damp, wooded, or swampy environments, which is why the Florida deer fly is so abundant.
Silverfish
What exactly are silverfish? Well, the silverfish gets it’s name from it’s silvery, almost metal look. They also have fish-liked shapes and movements. They’re known by other names as well, like bristletails thanks to the three long tail-like appendages on their rear ends. They have no wings but are shockingly fast for such a small insect. The adults have a body length of about three fourths of an inch not including the pronged tail. Silverfish are flat bodied insects. They taper from the head into a thin lower body covered with scales. They, like you might guess, are usually silver or grey on color and have long, threadlike antennas. And you probably won’t be able to see them, but they have small compound eyes that are situated on either side of their heads.
Silverfish are also nocturnal insects and tend to avoid the light. That’s why you’re likely to find them in dark places and see them scatter when you turn on a light. Their habitibal range also includes nearly the entire world. If there’s people, there’s usually silverfish. Strangely enough, these are also considered some of the most primative insects on the earth. They evolved to pretty much the state that they’re found in today as early as four hundred million years ago.
If you’ve worked in any kind of commercial building, you’ve probably seen Silverfish. They tend to infest structures like offices, stories, libraries, and warehouses. They’re usually introduced from one place to another via cardboard cartons of books and papers from other infested locations. Silverfish travel relatively large distances in the search for food. But once a silverfish finds a good source of a meal they tend to batten down and remain close to it for as long as possible. These are the places they will generally start to breed and infest and move out into the building.
Prevention of Silverfish
The key to preventing a silverfish infestation is exactly that. Prevention. You need to inspect habitat areas where materials and space that silverfish like and are likely to infest. Anything stored against or near your house for example, such as wood piles, can be an easy highway into your home for the pests. And always keep your house’s exterior well inspected and repaired. This means caulking holes and reparing doors or windows that they can squeeze through.
Conclusion
This is just three of the bad bugs you’ll see this year. Like I said above, expect a swarm of just about every pest. It seems like it’s getting warmer every year, which will lead to the growth and population increases of these insects. Make sure to protect your family by contacting a pest control specialist before any kind of infestation gets out of hand. Common florida pests can become uncommon problems if allowed to propogate. Also, use natural methods of pest control, as it’s been proven how dangerous chemical pesticides are time and time again.
