Enormous carpenter ants that can collapse a wooden house have been discovered in Bermuda, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.

The ants are very large and the females have wings: a major worker carpenter ant can grow to half an inch in size.

?Carpenter ants will make homes in wood, called a gallery,? Government insect expert Claire Jessey said yesterday.

?They do not eat the wood, but they go in and make holes for their nests and if allowed to become well established, can destabilise wooden structures.

She added: ?Carpenter ants are not an ant that we currently believe is established here. But we do have continual reports. We are very concerned that carpenter ants are now part of our environment?.

Ms Jessey will be carrying out further tests to see how big the ant problem is to Bermuda.has learned that the ants? primary site is an industrial area on Bakery Lane in Pembroke.

?A local lumber company in a commercial area of Pembroke was when I first heard about the ants,? Ms Jessey said. ?They were found at the Bermuda College. It was when they started to use the lumber that they discovered very large ants running out of the wood. They sprayed the wood with insecticide and killed as many as they could,? she said.

She said the imported lumber came from a lumber company at the Hamilton site but was ?uncertain if this was an isolated case or if they have taken up residence in the commercial area?.

The local lumber company denied the ants arrived on their lumber, and said it had just noticed the ants themselves, since another building in the area had been demolished, she said.

However, ?within the last two years Environmental Protection received a call from a resident from the same area who saw very large ants inside her house,? she said.

?They also had a large industrial company in the same area that had to be treated in the same area because of the same problem.

?Because this is a repeat occurrence there might be a bigger problem here.?

A website from the University of Kentucky?s Entimology Department said: ?Occasionally, swarms of winged carpenter ant reproductives will emerge inside a home.

?Carpenter ant swarms usually occur in the spring and are a sure sign that a colony is nesting somewhere inside the structure.?

Environmental Protection has requested that anyone who sees any unusual ants to contact them because they were ?very concerned?.