Winged Insects in Bathroom (S. Austin) (house, dangerous, eat)

[Bob_R]

We have ants in our bathroom normally. But today my wife saw these little winged things, we checked and they do not look like termites, but we've never seen them in our house before. There were only 3-4 of them, and obviously we got rid of them, but anything like that makes me nervous, so I thought I'd check and see if anyone else in the area has seen anything similar recently.

[FalconheadWest]

Did you take a picture and try to reverse google search it? Termites look like winged ants. If you "normally" have ants in your bathroom, that's also not good and you could have carpenter ants eating the wood.

[luksky]

We've been having some random winged insects in our home recently too. I didn't take a pic of them, but my husband looked them up and they look like some form of a termite, not the usual kind. Sorry I can't give more information, I really didn't pay much attention to what he was saying about it because I really was not all that worried about it....until it eats my house...lol

[Bob_R]

We usually have sugar ants in the kitchen, and these in the bathroom (not the winged ones), but they are more prevalent in summer. Anyway I got a picture and showed it too a friend, apparently he called it a winged fire ant.

[RunninJT]

Drones. Winged male ants who are doing their part for the colony. They are about to fly around (your house apparently) and look for a winged female princess to hook up with and start a new ant colony. Not really dangerous, just an indicator that you have a thriving colony somewhere in the bathroom. If you dont like them then keep the place clean and start leaving out some appropriate bait traps. Or call an exterminator.

Personally I have always tolerated most fire ants to a degree in the household proper. If you have ants in your house, you usually do not have a lot of other insects. Ants do not tolerate any trespassers at all.

[oldoak2000]

Those are 'swarmers' ; when a termite (or ant) colony is successfully thriving and growing, they produce (thousands) of swarmers that fly away to new location to start a new colony. They 'look different' than normal termites (darker) because they have hardened exoskeleton to withstand the harsh (to them) dry air to survive exiting your eaten 2x4's; they don't look like the 'normal' white wingless termites.

Those 'few you saw' were the few unlucky ones that didn't make it back into the walls at a new location to begin munching on nice fresh 2x4's so that they can have their own thriving colony, etc.
The dead ones out in the open are nothing to worry about. It's the hundreds, (or thousands) that DID find their way back in . . . .

[Denver303TJC]

Originally Posted by RunninJT

Drones. Winged male ants who are doing their part for the colony. They are about to fly around (your house apparently) and look for a winged female princess to hook up with and start a new ant colony.

(Ant opens up a bottle of Ant Private Reserve wine and pours wine into two ant-sized wine glasses)
(Queen ant and drone ant sit down on the edge of the bed and look into each other' eyes as Marvin Gaye plays in background)

[Denver303TJC]

Originally Posted by Bob_R

We have ants in our bathroom

Hey, at least you don't have ants in your PANTS!

[BijouBaby]

Originally Posted by Denver303TJC

Hey, at least you don't have ants in your PANTS!

I've actually HAD ants in my pants. It's not nice.