Workers emit a faint musty odor when crushed. Noticeable lines or trails of ants. Arrow denotes queen relative to worker ants. Argentine ants feeding on sugar source. Line depicts actual size of the ants.
Colonies are large and can contain many queens.
Nests can be identified by the presence of brood. Brood are the larval and pupal stages of the ant. Brood are cream colored to white and immobile, so workers ants must carry them when they need to be moved. These ants probably arrived in Louisiana in the 1890s on coffee ships from Brazil. They rapidly spread throughout the United States.