The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" - crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

"They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful.

"There's just thousands and thousands of them.

If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are.

They're going fast, fast, fast.

They're crazy."

The ants - formally known as "paratrenicha species near pubens" - have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.

The newly recognised species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston.

Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.

The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.

But the ants also like to suck the sweet juices from plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs, and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken.

They also bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.

Nampa-AP

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