Fire ants (Red Imported Fire Ants, Solenopsis invicta) originated from South Africa and were inadvertently introduced to the US through the port of Mobile, Alabama in the 1930s.
Last year, over 20 million people were stung by fire ants and billions were spent in the fight against them by ways of medical cost, control/treatment cost and property damage repairs. Fire ants are extremely aggressive and will attack if their mounds are disturbed. They multiply by the thousands and one colony can have multiple queens capable of laying 1,500 eggs per day. Currently, fire ants infest more than 325 million acres across the southern United States.