ROLL CALL: HOUSTON MOSQUITO CONTROL SPIDER FORCE The Yellow and Black Garden Spider, proud builders of those zig-zaggy webs, “preys upon Houston’s least-favorite insects, including wasps and mosquitoes, but are completely harmless to humans. Its cousin, the Spiny-Backed Orb Weaver . . . is also a dutiful and helpful one-spider pest-control squad, and is even more recognizable.” [Houstonist]
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Tag: Critters
WHY YOU WANT DRAGONFLIES IN YOUR GARDEN “Our garden has a number of areas with standing water, prime mosquito breeding ground. In six years of gardening there, I have never been bitten by a mosquito. I don’t know of any other place in Houston, with the possible exception of being in the back of a convertible going 60 miles per hour down I-10, where I can make the same claim.” [Urban Harvest, in the Houston Chronicle]
Could you imagine a more perfect story . . . to catapult this wild, wild, Western city to international attention? It’s already gone viral. Marauding insects with a wacky name invade untold Houston suburbs! They’re attracted to . . . electricity! They’ll disable your home security system! And they eat Fire Ants!
- Houston being overrun by electronics-killing ants [Engadget]
- Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics [Associated Press]
- I For One Welcome Our New Ant Overlords [Bald Heretic]
Photo of Crazy Rasberry Ants: A&M Center for Urban & Structural Entomology
Bet the sellers are just itching to get rid of this place.
Here’s part of a photo from the listing of a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in Braewood Glen. It’s been on the market for two weeks, and the asking price was lowered to $109,900 just a few days in.
After the jump: They already got rid of the carpet — what more do you want?
