Pest Library

Ants

Common ants in Ontario consist of:
Carpenter Ant
Little Black Ant
Odorous House Ant
Thief Ant
Pavement Ants
Pharaoh Ant

An important identifier to be aware of is if the ants discovered in or around your home are winged, it means they are seeking to create a new colony and extend their population. Foraging worker ants will never have wings. This discovery could indicate a potentially heightened concern, if the species happens to be Carpenter Ants or Termites. Both species threaten the structural stability of your home. However, if the species ends up to be one of the other common Ants in Ontario, it becomes more of a pest concern and not a destructive concern.
Carpenter Ants: can be from 1/4” to 1/2” long and are almost 3 times the size of a Little Black Ant. They have six legs, are either dark brownish-black in body with a reddish-brown upper body (Red Carpenter Ants) or dark brownish-black all over (Black Carpenter Ants) and a smooth rounded thorax (middle) between their head and their abdomen. Their antennae are bent and in sections. They eat both plants, insects and forage for human food. To avoid confusion with Termites, Termites have straight antennae and a thick waist. Carpenter Ants have a narrow waist.

Little Black Ants: can be from 1 to 2 mm long, with their queen’s ranging from 4 to 5 mm long. They are scavengers that consume anything from bird droppings to dead insects. Little Black Ants will forage in homes, but nest in soil mounds.

Odorous Ants: get their name from emitting a strange smell, similar to the smell of rotten coconuts, when they are squashed. They are tiny (about an 1/8” long) but very fast and dark brown or black in colour. They usually travel in lines, but if disturbed they will run erratically, releasing their odor as they run. They forage in homes and will nest pretty much anywhere (inside or outside).

Thief Ants: similar in size to the Little Black Ants, they are 1.5mm – 2mm long. They get their names from nesting within other ant nests and stealing their food and brood (larvae and pupae). They are yellowish or brown and have an unevenly rounded thorax.

Pavement Ants: Similar attributes to the other common ants, but nests under or between sidewalks.

Pharaoh Ants: Similar again to the other common ants, but does not nest outdoors. They nest in inaccessible, humid, heated buildings, near sources of food and water, such as in wall voids. Mating with these ants takes place in the nest, so they are unlike other ant species, in that they do not fly or swarm

Bats

Eight species of Bats call Ontario home:
-The Hoary Bat
-Eastern Red Bat
-Silver-haired Bat
-Big Brown Bat
-Tricoloured Bat
-Northern long-eared Myotis
-Eastern Small-Footed Myotis
-Little Brown Myotis Bat (most common)

Bats in Canada are an endangered species and are protected under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. Females usually only give birth to one pup per year.

Bats are the only mammal that can fly!! Which is a pretty impressive title to carry. They are nocturnal, sleeping during the day and active at night. Their wing is similar to a human hand, with a thin layer of skin that stretches between each finger like extension. They can live up to 20 years and they are not blind.

Bats are an important part of a healthy, thriving ecosystem.

They not only assist in the management of insects that create a nuisance in our homes, on our farms and in our forests by being excellent pest eaters, they also play an important role as pollinators. As a pest eater, they can catch an insect every two seconds, translating to an increase in their own body mass by 25% within 30 minutes of feeding. Virtually an insect vacuum. When it comes to plants and flowers, some depend on bats for their pollination and for spreading seeds. Some plants rely completely on bats.

In summary, we need them! It’s important to respect our mammal friends and always treat them humanely.

Beetles

There are a large number of Beetle species in Ontario. The most observed are:
-Asian Lady Beetle
-Japanese Beetle
-Red Milkweed Beetle
-Seven-spotted Lady Beetle
-Common Red Soldier Beetle
-Six-spotted Tiger Beetle

In addition, there are also wood-boring beetle species, destructive in nature, feeding off wood structures.

As like other insects, the Beetle Species have a head, thorax and abdomen with six legs. They have strong powerful jaws, with solid, tough bodies.

They may live on plants, in wood, or in burrows in the ground and some even swim.

Beetles can be both a negative impact and positive impact on our environment. Some beetle species destroy crops or property, causing significant damage to trees in our forests and wood in our homes and other structures. While others are prominent decomposers that help to get rid of garbage, eat dead trees, reduce populations of problem insects like caterpillars and pollinate flowers.

Most species of Beetles have a life cycle of one year and go through four different stages; egg, larva, pupa and adult.

Cockroaches

The most common roaches found in Ontario are:
-German Cockroach
-Oriental Cockroach

They may be difficult to spot because they typically only come out at night. They have three developmental stages: egg, nymph and adult.

Out of the two, the worst to encounter in your home is the German Cockroach. They prefer the indoors and can grow to be as long as ¾ of an inch. They reproduce rapidly, taking only 3 months to reach adulthood verses the others that take ten to twelve months. One female can lay up to thirty eggs in a batch at a time and can produce up to five batches of eggs per cycle. With the eggs only taking a month to hatch, time and persistence is of the essence in preventing an infestation.

The Oriental Cockroach can reach up to 1 inch in length and are dark brownish black in colour, with a shiny appearance. They prefer cool, moist places and can be found in places in your home around sump pumps and water collection systems. They do have wings, but cannot fly and move slowly compared to other cockroaches. The Oriental Cockroach differs from the German Cockroach in that they take up to 216 days to mature enough to reproduce and they don’t produce as many eggs at a time. They produce approximately eight egg batches, with up to 16 eggs per case.

Wood Cockroaches (Wood Roaches) are about 1 inch long, light in colour and usually have wings. Their normal habitat is moist woodland areas, they prefer living outdoors and actively avoid humans. They produce about 29 egg batches, with each batch containing around 32 eggs, but rarely breed indoors. They are not destructive.

Fleas

Fleas are wingless insects, that are dark in colour, are very small (approximately 2 mm in length) and have bodies that are flattened in appearance (from a side view). They are agile and can jump up to 13 inches high (just over a foot and about 200 times their own body length). They are external parasites of mammals (including our house pets) and birds and depend on a fresh blood meal for survival.

Fleas have four life stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.

They lay tiny, white, oval eggs in cracks and crevices around your home or on the host. Eggs can easily fall off their hosts, so areas where the host rests or sleeps is one of the primary nesting sites. The eggs take around two days to two weeks for a larvae to hatch.

The larvae are small, pale in colour and have bristles of hair covering their worm like bodies. They feed on organic matter, like the faeces of mature fleas containing dried blood. They are in the larvae stage from between four to eighteen days.

Under preferable conditions, a flea will emerge from the Pupa within four days, but can take much longer under adverse conditions. This exact stage of life is what makes fleas so difficult to eradicate, because the pre-emergent adult flea will wait until the environment is suitable before emerging. Triggers that encourage emergence include vibrations (including sound), heat (in warm-blooded hosts) and increased levels of carbon dioxide. When fleas first emerge from their egg, they must feed on blood before they mature enough to be capable of reproduction. Female fleas can lay 5,000 or more eggs over the span of their life.

With ideal conditions of temperature, food supply and humidity an adult flea can live up to a year and a half.

Flies

The most common domestic flies in Canada are:
-Blow flies
-Cluster flies
-Drain flies
-Fruit flies
-Flesh flies
-Phorid flies
-House flies

Most flies share similar traits over all. The House Fly can be used as a reference when understanding flies and Pest Control. The House Fly can lay up to 500 eggs in a females lifetime. The eggs are laid in dead and decaying organic matter, such as food waste, carcass’ or feces. Fly larvae (maggots) hatch from their eggs within a day. They live and feed where they were laid. Their development takes from 2 weeks to 30 days dependent on conditions. The next stage in development transforms the larvae into a pupae. Within 2 – 6 days a fly emerges from the pupa.
The adult fly lives between 2 weeks to 3 months.

The Cluster Fly differs in that the adults feed on flower nectar, plant sap, fruits and other organic material, rather than dead or decaying material. As well, their larvae are parasites of earthworms. A good year for earth worms, means a great year for the pesky Cluster Fly, which in turn creates larger swarms of cluster flies to annoy humans. Cluster Flies can live up to two years.

Moths

Moth Caterpillars start to exit their eggs at the end of April, beginning of May. They grow and initially descend from the trees on their webbing, just to start the trek back up the tree trunk to forage on the leaves. This stage of growth, descending and then trekking back up the trunk is the targeted time for our treatment spray. When abundant, caterpillars can completely defoliate trees. Although healthy trees can survive defoliation, repeated removal of leaves can kill a tree. Older, less vigorous trees can be killed by a single defoliation.

The female gypsy moth lays between 600 to 1,000 eggs in a compact, tear-dropped shaped mass of eggs and silk. The egg masses remain in place all winter and hatch the following spring.

Mosquito

Only female mosquitoes bite people and animals to get a blood meal. Female mosquitoes need a blood meal to produce eggs.

The life cycle from egg to adult of a Mosquito can take less than 10 days and consists of an egg, that hatches in 1 or 2 days into a larva. A larva becomes a pupa, which is what the Mosquito eventually emerges from. Some Mosquitoes lay several eggs at a time in rafts that float on water. Others lay eggs on moist ground or lay eggs inside containers above the water line. They can lay between 100 and 400 eggs at one time.

Adult mosquitoes live for about 2 to 4 weeks depending on the species, humidity, temperature, and other factors. Female mosquitoes often live longer than male mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes in Canada are considered vectors, which means they can spread pathogens (germs) to people and animals. Mosquitoes get infected with germs, such as viruses and parasites, when they bite infected people and animals.

Mice & Rats

The House Mouse is known for it’s large ears and light brown to dark grey coat, with a lighter shade on it’s belly. On average an adult female House Mouse can have over 60 babies in one year.

Mice that have white on their bellies, their feet and the underside of their tails, with a brown or grey coat are Deer Mice. Deer Mice can produce two to four litters a year, containing three to eight babies.

The typical life cycle of mice is 2 -5 years indoors.

Rats originated in Asia and are larger then a mouse. They can weigh up to 1 pound. A rat that is found to build complex systems of tunnels and burrows at ground level is the Norway Rat. It prefers damp areas like crawl spaces and running tunnels along the base of a home close to foundation walls. The Roof Rat on the other hand prefers to be high up, living in trees, vines and other dense vegetation. They are expert climbers and will infest attics, roofs and upper stories of buildings.

Rats can give birth to as many as 7 litters a year, with 5-12 pups per litter.

Spiders

SPIDERS
There are 40 Species of Spiders found in Ontario. The two most common house spiders are:
-Black-Footed/Yellow Sac Spider
-House Spider

Other common species are:
-Yellow Garden Spider
-Banded Garden Spider
-Cross Orbweaver
-Cobweb Weaver

Ontario species are generally not dangerous and rarely ever bite humans.

Spiders aren’t all bad and can be helpful to have around if kept controlled in small numbers and in a location away from entertainment areas, because they feed on small insects and pests in and around your house like flies, ants, and other bacteria-carrying insects including cockroaches, mosquitoes, earwigs and moths. They serve a significant role in keeping populations of many insect pests in check.

Mating season for Spiders is typically from September through to October each year.

Termites

Termites feed primarily on dead and decaying cellulose, like wood, so they destroy many plant-based products, such as house frames, fence posts, wooden fixtures, paper, books and cotton. They actually eat and digest wood, they don’t just move it aside like a carpenter ant.

They are small in size and comparable to a grain of rice.

Termites are organized into three working roles. There are the workers with soft bodies, they are pale in colour (creamy white to grayish white) and have a waxy appearance, with mouth parts for chewing. Soldiers are larger and darker in colour, with hardened heads and long, black mandibles for defense. Workers and soldiers are wingless, but the reproductive Termites have four long wings of similar shape. They swarm, pair up, lose their wings, begin excavating a nest and mate, becoming the King and Queen of their new nest.

A mature colony can range from 20,000 workers to as high as 5 million workers and the primary queen of the colony lays 5,000 to 10,000 eggs per day.

Workers and soldiers live approximately one to two years. The Queen can survive for over 10 years when conditions are favourable.

Termites groom each other and in the process they exchange fecal matter. This grooming exchange is beneficial in regulating the colony’s structure (quantity of termites designated to each role), in assisting in digestion with sharing gut microbes and most importantly in protecting the colonies against disease. They will groom their sick nest-mates significantly more then healthy ones, to prevent disease from spreading within the colony.

The Eastern Subterranean Termites live in moist habitats, they do not build mounds like Termites of other countries. They are subterranean and live in underground colonies or in moist secluded areas above ground. They build distinctive mud tubes for traveling, protected, from their colony to a food source. The mud tubes protect Termites from predators and dehydration, maintaining a damp and moist environment.

Termites are severely destructive when found in and around our living space and often their presence in human made structures can go unnoticed until a serious structural concern is discovered. A termite infested timber piece can appear structurally sound from the outside, while inside there could be a vast number of voids similar to a honeycomb pattern. Termites are typically located at, near or below ground level. Trim work, sub flooring, flooring, and framing timbers are the areas of a building most susceptible to Termite damage.

Termites have their place, their purpose and that’s in the forest, in terms of their contribution to environmental regulation. They play a critical role in maintaining the integrity of the forest floor, by assisting in the decomposition of organic matter, such as dead fallen trees and foliage

Wasps

The most common wasps in Ontario are:
-Yellow jackets
-Paper wasps
-Mud daubers
-Bald-faced hornets

Wildlife

-Chipmunks
-Possums
-Raccoons
-Skunks
-Squirrels

Skunks: are like the size of a cat and weigh up to 14 lbs. Males are solitary animals when not breeding, but females may shelter in dens with other skunks for warmth in colder habitats. They shelter during the day in their burrows and come out in the evening. In the winter, Skunks do not hibernate, instead they go through a bit of a dormant stage. They will remain in their dens for extended periods, generally inactive and feeding rarely. They have been known to use the same winter den consecutively. Skunks have an excellent sense of smell and hearing, but can only see objects less than 10ft away. They can live up to 7 years in the wild, but many don’t make it past a year. Females will have their babies in May and June and can have a litter of 4 to 7 babies. The baby Skunks will remain in their dens for eight weeks. Skunks have two glands, one on each side of the anus, for spraying anything that threatens them. They can spray up to 10ft with accuracy and are capable of spraying up to six times in a row. If they exhaust their spray sack, they require up to ten days to produce another supply.

Raccoons: a nocturnal mammal, primarily active at night. They enjoy their own company and are usually only seen in groups when it’s a mom with her young. Raccoon's eat fruits, berries, nuts, fish, frogs, insects, turtles, mice, rabbits, muskrats and bird eggs. The average lifespan of a Raccoon in the wild is about five years, but with a healthy food source and shelter, they can survive for more than 10 years. Raccoon's typically give birth to 3 or 4 offspring, called kits, between March and April and only have one litter a year. If the first litter does not survive, a second litter is possible late June. Newborns are blind and deaf for their first three weeks.

Possum (Opossum): The Virginia Opossum is found in Canada and is our only marsupial (babies born under developed, that continue to develop and suckle in their mother’s pouch). Very similar in behaviour and diet to Skunks and Raccoon's, they are also omnivorous and opportunistic feeders. They enjoy eating a variety of plants and animal matter, as well as foraging through garbage. Possums are also about the size of a house cat, with coarse, greyish fur, whitish faces, long pointed snouts and naked, round ears with beady eyes. Their tails are rat like and can grasp items. Since they have naked tails, ears and paws, they are susceptible to the cold and are prone to frostbite. They are mostly docile, aloof and rarely dangerous. They have been known to play dead when scared and can stay in that state for up to six hours, waiting out danger.
Possums generally breed from December to February and birth litters between February and June. Usually, females have one or two litters per year of 4-8 joeys, but can have a third litter if climatic conditions are favourable. The new born joeys can be as small as a honey bee, fur-less, blind and will crawl immediately into their moms pouch for protection and to continue to develop. After about two months they are large enough to ride on their mom’s back while she goes out to hunt. Opossums are mainly solitary animals, but have been observed hanging out with skunks and raccoon's.

Squirrels & Chipmunks: Red and grey squirrels are common in Ontario. Squirrels reproduce twice a year, February to April and in late August to September. The first litter of babies will leave the nest around April or May and the second litter leaves in September. Baby squirrels are ready to be on their own at 10 weeks of age.

Chipmunks generally reproduce once a year with breeding season from mid-April to mid-May. Babies are born after about 30 days, in May and June and will stay in the nest for up to six weeks. Chipmunks typically give birth to litters of 3-8 young.