Lorraine Vivian was enjoying a brief stroll through some long grass in Houston, Texas, when she noticed a small, burning sensation on her leg.
The next thing she knew, she was being overrun by tiny, copper coloured ants that swarmed and attacked her lower half.
The Yarrawonga resident said her husband Keith desperately swatted the bugs off her legs as they ran back to the apartment they were holidaying in.
“It’s the most horrible thing,” Ms Vivian told Jonathon Kendall on ABC Victorian Mornings of her 2017 holiday disaster.
“My husband came out in blisters on his hands where they’d bitten him as he tried to get them off my legs … the whole lot were after me.”
The Invasive Species Council has raised the alarm about fears fire ants could travel from Queensland, where they first took hold in Australia, to Victoria via the Murray-Darling Basin.
The species has caused havoc globally, and was this week discovered in Italy — the first official sighting in Europe.
Fire ants are considered one of the world’s worst super pests.
Insect ecologists say the ants’ ability to fly, and to swarm together and “float” on water, is a “superpower”, and one which could help them into New South Wales and Victoria.
Invasive Species Council advocacy manager Jack Gough said every state in Australia was at risk of finding fire ants “at their doorstep”.
The Invasive Species Council said funding delays, including from the Victorian government, could be catastrophic for the eradication of fire ants.
A leaked government report allegedly reported a $49 million shortfall in funding nationally, with Victoria yet to commit to funding the National Fire Ant Eradication Plan.
(ABC)
