If you see a trail of ants invading your kitchen sink for water or food, these are probably the very invasive species commonly called "Argentine" ants. However, if you see a solitary ant that is slightly bigger than the black Argentine ant, and it just happens to give you a horrific sting, beware, as many people can experience a life-threatening allergic reaction to them.
Look at the map at the School of Ants (see link below). These invasive Asian needle ants are expanding on the East Coast, in Wisconsin, and in Washington State. They originally came from Japan back in the 1930s.
The School of Ants wants us to beware of these aliens and to report them because they can cause an ecological disaster to our vulnerable forests.
http://www.schoolofants.org/species/1157
Unlike other ant species, Asian needle ants do not follow foraging trails. If one finds food too big to bring back to the nest, she will run home and tap one of her sisters imploringly on the head. Her sister responds by folding up in the fetal position. The forager then picks her sister up, tucks her under her body, and creeps as fast as she can back to the food.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... O_20130304
Eleanor Spicer Rice, a graduate student studying entomology at the time, was tracking a network of Argentine ant nests in an office park in North Carolina and found a few nests of Asian needle ants. “It is really weird that another ant could be nesting within the Argentine territory,” Spicer Rice says. Argentine ants do not tolerate competition.