WHITE ANTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 February 1939, Page 8

WHITE ANTS

AUCKLAND PEST IDENTIFIED AUSTRALIAN VARIETY. POSITION CONSIDERED SERIOUS. Identification of the ants responsible for serious damage of the offices of he Onehunga Building Society as the dreaded Australian mound-building white ant .Coptotermes lacteus, has been made by the assistant-director and chief entomologist of the Cawthron Institute, Dr David Miller. It is presumed that the Australian white ant was also responsible for damage to the Onehunga municipal offices, which adjoin those occupied by the Onehunga Building Society. Other instances of the appearance of the Australian white ant in Auckland have also come to the notice of Dr Miller, who describes the situation as very serious. Following the receipt of specimens, representatives of the institute visited the offices of the Onehunga Building Society on Friday and made intensive investigations. They then discovered what they describe as the royal chamber, this being a subterranean home of the ants, its presence being revealed by a mound on the surface of the ground. It was promptly destroyed. “I fear that the magnitude of the white ant position in the Dominion is by no means fully appreciated by the public,” said Dr Miller, in a statement on the subject. ‘‘The too-frequently-expressed opinion that Australian and other exotic white ants, though reaching New Zealand for a number of years past, would never become established, much less become a serious problem, is meaningless and misleading. MAGNITUDE NOT APPRECIATED. “The position indicated by recent observations in the Dominion is that the position is really a serious one for timber users, especially when one considers that most of our buildings are of wood and quite unprotected from white ant attack. For some time we have been accustomed to certain Australian and New Zealand white ants attacking our timbers; none of these, however, appears yet to be of major destructiveness when compared with the Australian Coptotermes lacteus. In Australia it is considered a species most destructive to wooden buildings.” EVIDENCE OVER WIDE AREA. It is now revealed that in the past few months there has been evidence over a wide area in Auckland of the intense destructiveness of the Australian white ant mentioned. At Narrow Neck is was recently deemed necessary to. .destroy by fire a military, building, the timbers of which were found to be but a hollow shell. Investigation showed that the Australian white ant was responsible, there being evidence of subterranean aitack of the timbers. “The white ant Coptotermes lacteus is responsible for millions of pounds worth of damage in Australia,” said Mr H. H. Corbin, formerly professor of forestry at Auckland University College.-. “Now that it clearly is established here, the sooner a campaign to destroy colonies is started the better. It must be a systematic process. There is usually no outside evidence of the presence of ■ants in woodwork.

“The chief method of discovery is to stick a thin probe into the wood. It will soon be found by this method if the interior has been tunnelled by the ant. The ants swarm on hot, muggy days as a rule. They then have wings, but afterward they break off their wings and start their ramifications into timber.” It is disclosed that the Forestry Department regards the position seriously, and has been making investigations into the position in Auckland.