Specimen Showcase | A Sculpture by Red Imported Fire Ants
- Hong Kong Biodiversity Museum
- Mar 10
- 1 min read
There is beauty in nature, even in the most unwanted organisms; so let’s take a new angle and appreciate those.
The Red Imported Fire Ants (RIFA) (𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘢 (Buren, 1972)), is one of the most notorious invasive ants in Hong Kong and in the world. Originary from South America, this species was introduced in Hong Kong likely around the late 1990’s. They are well known for the uncomfortable reactions caused on human bodies after they sting, with a small percentage of people experiencing more excruciating pains or even anaphylactic shocks.
What you may not know, however, is that they are also talented architects and engineers that build amazing nests. The 200,000 workers that can compose a colony build numerous tunnels in the nest connecting the parts above and below ground, in which the depth underground could be up to 80cm.
In the HKBM, we have a beautiful cast of a RIFA’s mound made of molten aluminum, produced by a volunteer farmer of the Lai Chi Wo village, and then kindly donated to our museum. Just have a look at it when you come to visit us and appreciate the complexity of the structure made by those 3-7mm long insects!