It’s easy to mix up carpenter ants with other kinds of ants, or even termites! With their wood-tunneling habits and their many physical similarities to common ant species, it’s no wonder that people don’t often catch carpenter ants until they’ve done significant damage. Here in Wisconsin, we have seen carpenter ants cause some seriously expensive damage before ever being discovered. So, how can you tell apart carpenter ants and other pests?
What Does a Carpenter Ant Look Like?
Carpenter ants look a lot like other types of ants in Wisconsin, but they do have a few characteristics that you can distinguish them from others by. These are:
- Their size: Carpenter ants are larger than most ant species in the United States. They reach up to 1.5cm in length in some cases.
- Their color: Some kinds of carpenter ants are plain black all the way through like other ants in the area, but some subspecies have a unique yellow-red tint that becomes more prominent toward the back of their bodies.
- Other features: Some distinguishing features of carpenter ants are their swarmers’ long wings and their workers’ large mandibles. If you see winged carpenter ants in your home, it is a bad sign that there is already an active outbreak of them causing damage to your home.
How to Tell if You Have Carpenter Ants
If you aren’t sure that the ants in your home are carpenter ants based on how they look, there are a few more indicators to look for. Carpenter ants tunnel through the wooden structures in homes just like termites do, but the difference between them is that termites eat the wood that they chew and carpenter ants don’t. This means you’ll often find trails of wood shavings where they’ve been present.
Other signs of carpenter ants are:
- Swarmer wings that have broken off
- Wood damage
- Ant activity in crawl spaces and attics
It’s a good idea to check your vulnerable spaces for ant activity routinely. When you do find ants in the house, try to find out whether or not they are carpenter ants. When it comes to carpenter ants, it is crucial to act quickly to get rid of them.
Get Rid of Carpenter Ants in Wisconsin
If you’ve found carpenter ants in your house in Wisconsin, don’t worry about them biting you or causing disease. What you should be worried about is the amount of damage they could cause or may have already caused. The safest way to stop carpenter ants is to tell your local pest control company about them. The ant control experts at Batzner Pest Control can eliminate active infestations and set up preventative measures to stop future infestations. For a free ant control quote, contact us today!
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How to Identify Carpenter Ants: Signs and Damage in Wisconsin in Wisconsin
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