Located in Western Australia, 2600km from the coast, there is an island with an extremely impressive name: Christmas Island – also known as Christmas Island. And on this island exists the red crab – a species of land crab that is extremely famous in the world, when creating migrations of up to millions of individuals.

Newly hatched red crabs, crawling around, are an extremely attractive sight on Christmas Island.

But the red crab population on Christmas Island is in serious decline. And the reason is the invasion of a very aggressive species of yellow ants. They secrete a very strong acid to mark their territory, and that inadvertently makes the red crabs miserable.

It is estimated that there were once 40-50 million red crabs living on Christmas Island. However, the population has declined by 40% in the past 15 years due to attacks by weaver ants.

Scientists have yet to discover the origin of this species of weaver ant, however, they are ranked in the top 100 most aggressive invasive species on the list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This species of ant is nicknamed “crazy” ants, and they are expanding their territory throughout the Asia-Pacific. 

Yellow ants – the culprit that makes red crabs suffer

According to experts, “crazy” ants appeared on Christmas Island through trade by ship in the early 20th century. By the early 1990s, the population of “crazy” ants on the island began to explode, turning this place into one of their leading colonies.

These ants secrete acid everywhere when they are in danger. This is a highly toxic liquid that can cause blindness, paralysis and mass death in red crabs.

Red crab attacked by red ants

Currently, this species of ant is dominating an area of ​​2,500 hectares with a density of 1,000 individuals/m2. Scientists must take necessary measures to preserve other species living on Christmas Island.

And they do it in a very… creepy way.

Researchers from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, decided that poisoning the ants would not be an effective solution. Instead, they looked for a natural predator of the “crazy” ants.

They found that in Malaysia there is a species of hornet that can kill the insects that produce honey, which is the daily food of “crazy” ants. But there is no such thing as “crazy ants”; this unnamed wasp, only 2mm long, will lure ants to come and capture them, and lay eggs inside their bodies.

Ants are essentially dead after they lay their eggs. They just exist as zombies, waiting for the day the bee larvae hatch to become a food source for the bees to grow.

Scientists have introduced bees to Christmas Island, right in the middle of the land of the “crazy” ants. Although the impact of this action on the “crazy” ants is not yet known, scientists hope that as the bee population increases, the number of red crabs will increase back to the original level within the next two decades.

“The ant colony will be eradicated and Christmas Island will be returned to its rightful owners ,” La Trobe University scientists confidently declared.