Just in case...

[Mike Stafford]

The next time you are in the Amazon jungle and happen to cut yourself with your machete severely enough to require stitches you should look around for some army ants.

Not just any army ants but the warrior army ants. They are easily recognized by the large mandibles which are used to defend the ant colony from predators.

These warrior ants can be used as stitches/sutures. Just grab the warrior ant by the body and position the mandibles so that they on both sides of the laceration. Press the mandibles against the skin and almost immediately the ant will close its mandibles and pinch the skin closed just like a suture. Then you just twist off the ant's body. Apply as many ants as necessary to close the wound.



These warrior ants will attack virtually anything they can grab so this is an ant species that you definitely don't to find in your pants.

Stay tuned for more useful information.

 

[Chuck Ellis]

American Red ants aren't all that pleasant in your pants... when I was about 4 or 5 I sat in an ant nest while playing.... at some point in time they let me know they were there and there was this little cotton top kid standing in the front yard stripping off his pants and dancing around.

 

[Mike Stafford]

The first time I discovered how fire ants got their name I was standing in the grass and all through the grass there were fire ants. I am guessing a hundred made their way up my pants legs and every one of them bit me.

I looked like the Michelin man the next day.

 

[Dave Hoskins]

One thing I learned over the years is a great appreciation for big, fat red wasps. Just the solid red ones, mind you. They are your friends. They eat them big bad ants. Where I lived before, I would have those red wasps occasionally ride on my shoulder or arm. They made no act of aggression towards me, so I let them do what they wanted as well. But again. remember this is only the solid red wasps, not those that have some black and whatever on them.

 

[Chuck Ellis]

I remember the fat red wasps.... when I was about 4 we had a nest up near the eave of the house... a couple were evidently fighting or something and dropped out of the nest, down the front of my shirt... stinging me as they went down.... good ole big sister, she was 6, was trying to get them out of my shirt and another one popper her right between the eyes.... I survived but had a few welts on my chest and belly, my sister swelled to the point she was blind for about 3 days.
If grandma had been there she would have put snuff on the stings to draw out the poison.

 

[Darren Wright]

I learned not to wear my sunglasses on my face or on top of my head walking out our back door. There’s been a nest of red wasps making there home in the soffit above it. They either think I’m a big wasp or they see their reflections and start attacking every time.

 

[Chuck Ellis]

When we lived in West Texas we had a bumble bee nest in the soffit on the front porch... Dad walked out one Saturday on our way to town to do shopping.... one of the bees stung him in the back of the head .... he sent us on to town and he tore the soffit and half the ceiling out of the porch to get rid of the bees.... he had 4 kids under 12 and we played on the porch, he was afraid one of us would get stung.

We also had a root cellar used to store canned goods... Mom went down to get some empty canning jars and found a king snake coiled up on one of the jars... she marched back up the steps and told Dad he had to get that snake out plus the other one she didn't see... she suspected that was a second down there, or else she wasn't canning anything that fall.... he found two and after they were dead, he made me (9 years old) take them off to the woods.... one slid off the shovel and I buried it where it fell.... I hate snakes almost as much as Indiana Jones.

 

[Dave Hawksford]

My time on the Amazon I was fortunate not to have cut myself.
I do carry a hot glue in my hunting bag for such problems if they happen.

 

[Paul Douglass]

My time on the Amazon I was fortunate not to have cut myself.
I do carry a hot glue in my hunting bag for such problems if they happen.

Good idea,, I have never had a doctor stitch me with ants, but I have had them use CA glue. Have to be careful though, is that stuff sets off on you skin, it can leave a burn that will take a lot longer to heal than a cut.

 

[Charles Lent]

I have absolutely Zero intention of ever going to South America in what time I have left.

For Fire Ants, I pay my bug man to treat my property for them and whatever he uses lasts well, for about 2 years. So he is coming back every 2 years and treating them on schedule. We only started having fire ant problems 6 years ago. Before that the only ants here were the tiny brown ants. He is the same guy that takes care of my termite traps. Those bait traps that they put in the ground every 10 feet around my house and workshop. So far, no Termite problems.

Charley