Zompopa Control

[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

As many of you know, Zompopas are the bane of many, if not most, gardeners in Costa Rica.  Zompopas... the leaf-cutter ants... The demon spawn known scientifically as Atta cephalotes.  I have had them strip multiple young trees of ALL leaves overnight and even huge trees in a matter of days.  They have damaged untold numbers of our plants, including my wife's rose gardens, killing many of our plants over the years.  But this past year I finally took them on with vigor.  And I have been winning the war against this very robust foe...

I do have a lot of respect for Zompopas.  Their societies are some of the largest and most complex animal societies on earth, rivaling those of humans and bees.  In secondary forests and at the forest edges they are often the dominant herbivore in the ecosystem. Their queens are among the longest-lived insects and may live 10-20 years, producing 25,000 eggs per day and as many as 150 million daughters over their lifetime. If they would leave me and mine alone, I would happily do the same for them.  But they do not.  And so I decided last year to take it to them in a hard way.  I don't expect to ever truly win this war.  For me it is a matter of pounding them back to a level of control so that my young trees can survive and our gardens are no longer ravaged by their voracious appetite for new leaves.

I have long been a serious opponent to using insecticides on anything under our control and I think pesticides are one of Costa Rica's serious problems.  I know more twins and genetically deformed people in our rural community than I have ever met in all my previous years combined.  My thriving gut flora tell me that is a direct result of seriously bad chemicals in the food chain.  Gene is an expert in bad chemicals and we regularly find stuff in our local ferreteria that he says have been banned in the USA and Europe decades ago.  But those damn Zompopas have brought out the poisoner in me like none other...  The 2 weapons I use in this war (and I have tried many others) are Dinamita and Trompa. There are many more natural and less effective home-made remedies that I will likely go back to at some point, but none that I've tried as effective as Dinamita and Trompa.

Dinamita is an organophosphate (as in Nazi nerve gas) pesticide -- Chlorpyrifos -- and is considered a Class II moderately hazardous material to humans by WHO.  I think the USA and EU have banned it for residential use decades ago.  It is very effective and was very widely used throughout the world.  I'm sure we have all ingested a good bit of this neurotransmitter inhibitor when we were younger which could explain a lot of the results we see in this crazy world today.  According to the NIH in the USA, the half-life for Chlorpyrifos typically ranges from 33-56 days for in soil applications (which is what I do when using it against Zompopas) and 7-15 days for surface applications.  In water, the half-life is about 25 days and in the air, the half-life ranges from 4-10 days.  That is what finally convinced me to use it.  I pour Dinamita 5 SP granules down the opening of every Zompopa nest I find, then I toss a shovel of dirt over the opening and tamp it down.  The following day the nest is dead and I figure within a few months the poison will be mostly neutralized.  It is very effective.  It is very satisfying to see immediate results.

One problem with Zompopas is that they can travel a long way from their nest in search of precious leaves.  They don't actually eat the leaves they cut.  They are farmers and use the leaves they carry back to their nests as a substrate for growing a fungus that they do eat.  Zompopas are excellent partners in this symbiotic relationship and actively cultivate their fungi by feeding it freshly cut plant material and keeping it free from pests and molds. The fungus farmed by Zompopas does not produce spores and needs the ants to stay alive as much as the zompopa larvae need the fungus to stay alive.  Obligatory mutualism at its finest.  For Zompopa nests that I cannot find or easily get to, I've been using Trompa in my great Zompopa War of 2023.  A common trick in battling Zompopas is to introduce a fungicide in their nest by tricking the ants into carrying the fungicide into their underground gardens and killing their food supply.  The nest food supply is destroyed and the colony collapses. I thought Trompa was one of these fungicide baits when I first bought it but since then I've studied it further and found out that it really is not.  It is used like the fungicide batis by sprinkling it down the Zompopa trails where it gets picked up by empty-handed ants on their way out to collect leaves.  They bring it back inside the nest and it does destroy the nest.  These kind of baits are great for attacking zompopas whose nests you cannot get to (like in a neighbor's yard) because all you need is to lay it down on their trail and they pick it up and carry it back home wherever that might be.  I've tracked Zompopas that were cutting our leaves across two neighboring farms before I gave up when the brush became too thick for easy bushwhacking.

Trompa's active ingredient is Abamectin, a natural fermentation product of a soil dwelling bacteria. It binds to chemicals in invertebrate nerve and muscle cells resulting in paralysis and death. Mammals do have this chemical in the brain and spinal cord, but it is very difficult for the Abamectin to cross the blood-brain barrier and it is therefore considered safe for mammals.  Abamectin is a cousin of Ivermectin and has been used as a horse dewormer and anti-parasite drug in humans. It degrades rapidly and has a half-life between 1/2 - 23 days depending upon being applied on water, soil or plants.  It is very effective at killing Zompopas as well (just not via their fungus garden like other baits) and it seems to be much less hazardous to have around.  I'll likely shift over to using more Trompa and less Dinamita as time goes on.

While on Zompopa patrol this morning I found zero signs of the huge colony denuding our veraneras and a good sized llama del bosque tree days before.  I tracked those Zompopas about 40 meters onto a neighbor's farm before I gave up due to the thick overgrowth they disappeared into.  I only sprinkled Trompa pellets on about 10 meters of their trail on my side of the fence and today there are no signs of Trompa pellets nor Zompopas.  Battle won.  Even though I know the war will continue long after I am gone...

zompopas zompopas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co47UPFlmkY

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Sam, the Exterminator

[Don Hickman]

Very informative.  Thanks.  As an aside, the crazy ants invaded here about 3 years ago and they totally wiped out the cutter ants.  We used to battle them all the time but now haven't seen one in almost 3 years.  Mysteriously the crazy ants have also disappeared. Win/win!

Don

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[Sam Wilson]

Hi Don,

You are talking about the little bitty hormigas locas?  Like sugar ants?  I think your hormigas locas must be different from ours...  Ah, yes!  I do recall hearing about the invasion of hormigas locas in Costa Rica from the Amazon...

Hormiga loca en Costa Rica: sepa qué hacer si usted tiene una plaga de esta especie en su casa

https://observador.cr/hormiga-loca-en-costa-rica-sepa-que-hacer-si-usted-tiene-una-plaga-de-esta-especie-en-su-casa/

I don't think we've seen them up our way yet, but I did see a sad video of these ants blinding and killing pizotes, garrobos, birds, and sloths.

From the above El Observador article:

      El último registro de agosto del 2022  identificó que la hormiga loca está presente en:

• Grecia
  
• Atenas
  
• San Ramón
  
• Palmares
  
• Naranjo
  
• Sarchí
  
• Alajuela (Central, Río Segundo, Guácima, Tuetal)
  
• San Carlos (Pocosol)
  
• Poás
  
• Heredia (Santo Domingo y Santo Tomás)
  
• Puntarenas (Esparza, San Rafael y El Roble)
  
• La Cruz
  

I think this invasive species are the Rasberry Crazy Ants (Nylanderia fulva) and like some of the other bigger "crazy" ants, as you noticed they usually displace other ant species.  These are also known for coating themselves with formic acid when fighting other ants like fire ants which acts as an antidote against the fire ant venom.  In ant fight experiments they survive 98% of the time when fighting fire ants because of this practice.  Researchers blocked their ducts for secreting the formic acid antidote and then these rasberry crazy ants only survived 48% of the time when fighting fire ants.  Those little bastards have also been known to cause short circuits in electrical equipment by chewing through insulation and wiring.

Were they reddish and look like this?

Glad they went elsewhere and hope they stay away from me.  I'll take my chances with the enemy I know and love...  jajaja.

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Sam

ENVU says these are Paratrechina longicornis

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[Don Hickman]

Yep.  That's them.  They were here for about a year.  Gazillions of them.  I sprayed Cynoff around the entire house outside in order to keep them out.  But they took out the zampopos completely.  Haven't seen one in 2 years now and we used to fight them all the time.  Then the little buggers just disappeared.  So I like them.

Don 

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