YELLOW CRAZY ANTS 

More about Yellow Crazy Ants and the history of the
Yellow Crazy Ant Taskforce. 

Yellow Crazy Ants
  • have a yellow body and brown abdomen (gaster) that can appear striped when the ant has recently consumed liquid food
  • have unusually long legs and antennae
  • are 4mm-5mm long
  • tend to move in an erratic ‘crazy’ manner, rather than forming distinct trails
  • can become highly abundant and have many queens per colony
  • Can be highly invasive
Worker Ants
When we talk about yellow crazy ants, we are referring to the worker ants, Worker ants are:
  • Female
  • Commonly seen outside of the nest foraging for food
There are also queens and males which are rarely seen outside the nest
Male Ants
Males are:
  • are smaller than workers
  • have wings
  • are not always visible above ground
  • are rarely seen because they do not contribute to colony foraging or maintenance
  • sole purpose is mating
Queen Ants
Queens:
  • are larger and may have wings
  • are responsible for reproduction within the colony
  • have a larger abdomen to hold their functioning ovaries
Lifestyle StagesThe development process of yellow crazy ants is similar to butterflies.
  • Queens lay eggs
  • Eggs hatch after 18-20 days into larvae
  • Larvae live for 16-20 days before they turn into pupae
  • After 20 days the pupae transform into worker ants
  • Worker ants live for about 76-84 days
(Wet Tropics Management Authority, 2020)
The History of the YCA taskforce​
Download the Timeline PDF here

​In April 2015 Mikhaila Jacoby officially formed the Kuranda Yellow Crazy Ant Community Taskforce after an infestation of yellow crazy ants swarmed in her backyard at Russett Park. She believed the success of treating the infestation required a community led approach.
In June 2015, Kuranda Envirocare obtained a Wet Tropics Community Grant from Terrain Natural Resource Management to coordinate volunteers and activities for the Taskforce. Soon there were more than 100 active local volunteers to survey and treat the infestation area.
When funding to eradicate yellow crazy ants from the Wet Tropics became uncertain, the community mobilised and raised $20,000, half of which was donated by The Kuranda Paper, for research into the biology of yellow crazy ants and collection of ant colonies for set up in a laboratory.
Today, the Yellow Crazy Ant Community Taskforce works alongside the Authority’s Yellow Crazy Ant Eradication Program to help find and eradicate yellow crazy ants in and adjacent to the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. 
The Yellow Crazy Ant Community Taskforce is managed by Kuranda Envirocare. It works closely with the Wet Tropics Management Authority’s Yellow Crazy Ant Eradication Program which also provides funding assistance through Kuranda Envirocare for provision of a taskforce coordinator.
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Yellow crazy ants have been able to overpower this gecko and are now consuming it.
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Yellow crazy ants swarm. When unchecked they breed into large swarms and can raft down waterways.
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Taskforce members enjoying a field day.

Activites of the YCA taskforce (PDF's)

In August 2015 the Yellow Crazy Ant Taskforce went online with its own website whcih was the hub for all information about the Yellow Crazy Ant Taskforce and the activities they were involved in.
By 2025 most of the sites monitored by the YCA taskforce had no evidence of Yellow Crazy Ants and so the taskforce website was merged into the Kuranda Envirocare Website. 
You can find all of the information about the monitored sites and the results of surveys along with loads more information in the YCA Blogs. These are downloadable PDF versions of the original blogs from the YCA website. 
What a fantastic achievement and although we can't say the ants have been eradicated from these areas until they have been free of activity for 5 years, we continue to monitor those sites and are happy that for many of our sites where YCA were living, there has been no reported activity so far. 

References; 
​​Information SourcesGruber, M. A. M., Cooling, M., and Burne, A. R. (2016). PIAT: the Pacific Invasive Ant Toolkit. Pacific Biosecurity. New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Available at: http://piat.org.nz (accessed 2019)
Wet Tropics Management Authority. (2020, Feb 24). What are yellow crazy ants. Retrieved from Wet Tropics Management Authority: https://www.wettropics.gov.au/yellow-crazy-ants
Global Invasive Species Database (2020). Downloaded from http://www.iucngisd.org/gisd/100_worst.php on 25-05-2020
Wet Tropics Management Authority. [Minute Earth]. (2014, June 2). Invasion of the Yellow Crazy Ants!. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmztPktOfzs
Invasive Species Council Australia.(2016) What yellow crazy ants can do to Australia’s Wet Tropics. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKvFAj9gGB8&feature=youtu.be (Accessed: 2019)
Invasive Species Council Australlia. (2016). What yellow crazy ants can do to sugarcane. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoaomEy9lSk&feature=youtu.be (Accessed: 2019)
TheAnimalPortal. (2017). Red crabs and yellow crazy ants (Wildlife Documentary).Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viEci2na0p8. (Accessed:2019)
Queensland Government, (2020). Yellow crazy ant. Retrieved May 25, 2020, from
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/industries/farms-fishing-forestry/agriculture/land-management/health-pests-weeds-diseases/pests/invasive-animals/restricted/yellow-crazy-ant