Empire of the Ants

Several species of exotic ants have shown up on islands off Australia and are threatening to destroy aboriginal communities there, forming enormous and destructive supercolonies.

[One community] has spent more than $70,000 in the past 12 months fixing electrical problems due to the Singapore ant. "I have never seen an infestation of Singapore ants like this before, the magnitude of damage is really overwhelming." [...] Ginger ants are notorious for their painful sting, which can cause allergic reactions in people. [...] Many houses were totally surrounded by ginger ants, preventing people from using their yards. [...] Dr. Hoffmann says pest ants, particularly the African Big-headed ant and the Yellow Crazy ant, can form huge colonies, totally displacing native animals and seriously disrupting ecological processes.

Yikes. And what's scarier than hundreds of thousands of chaotic, swarming insects is hundreds of thousands of highly organized, swarming insects. Biologists have just figured out the simple traffic rules that army ants use to create "multiple freeway-like trails that are up to 20 meters (65 feet) wide and 100 meters (330 feet) long" during their rampages. For some reason, though, I find that mental picture less disturbing than hundreds of thousands of army ants, which do not build true nests, forming a living nest out of their very bodies.

Creepy.