Fire ants in Nature

 Fire ants have a toxin in their bites that causes intense pain when the bite occurs. The skin reddens and swells and in a day or two a head of white pus appears, like a pimple, but it won’t break open like a pimple. You have to just leave it alone even though it will itch unbearably. Cortisone helps some people. Medicated witch hazel, the kind with clove oil in it, is good too.

I read that applying toothpaste with a high fluoride content to the bite will stop the burning and itching. I tried it and it works. The bites healed faster. I have no idea what the toxin is, or why fluoride seems to help, but it works for me.

As far as danger, you wouldn’t want to be bitten all over your body; that would probably be reason for a doctor visit. Just a few bites will drive you crazy but if you are a healthy person you wouldn’t get sick.

There may be some people who have a serious allergy to the toxin and in that case, a trip to the ER would be in order. The other danger would be scratching a bite so much so that it became infected.

I found a fire ant inside a habanero. He chewed his way inside. Do fire ants have taste buds?

Look at some decent parrot food — not the bricks of chow, but the seed & dried veggie mix. You’ll usually find lots of little hot peppers in them. Birds in general (there may be exceptions that I’m not aware of) do not have a pain response to capsacin.

Birds are WAY more similar to mammals than are ants. They even have the same taste receptor (TRPV1) but the bird version is not sensitive to capsacin. (This, incidentally, works out great for the chili peppers, since birds are great seed dispersers; it’s better for the chilies’ survival that birds NOT be bothered eating their fruits.)

(Jordt S-E and Julius D (2002) Molecular basis for species-specific sensitivity to "hot" chili peppers. Cell 108: 421-430).

Ants have extremely sensitive taste-analog receptors, but these are not very similar to ours; far less than are those of birds.

Can you go into an anaphylactic shock from fire ants?

You may just have something there🐜!! Their bite is painful & strong chance if not treated right away, you could end up with anaphylactic shock!!