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How to identify Argentine ants

The two main ways to identify the ants are by their colour and their trails. The worker ant, which is the most commonly seen, is light to dark honey brown and around 2-3mm long, which means they are slightly smaller and a lighter colour than New Zealand's common black household ant.

Argentine ants tend to travel in numbers; their trails are often five or more ants wide and travel up trees or buildings. Other species don't tend to climb trees or have such obvious trails, unless they are moving their nest, in which case the ants would be carrying their eggs. If you place your finger on the ground in front of an ant, its behaviour should indicate whether it is an Argentine ant or not. While other ants will move away from your finger, Argentine ants will approach your finger and try to climb it.

The ants are not poisonous but they are aggressive and do bite. They have a tendency to displace all other insects inside the area affected by the colony, except for aphids and scale insects on plants, which they farm to produce honey dew. The colonies of Argentine ants are interconnected and co-operative; their sheer numbers gives them a competitive edge against other insect populations. So if you have other ant species on your property then it is unlikely that you will have Argentine ants.