My Bananas grow like weeds and take the usual 10 months to flower and fruit. No pests and no problems.
Now I have a problem. I have a "Mole" in the garden. It's favorite food appears to be the fleshy base of the Banana from which the roots come. Normally Moles are insectiverous so this is not a Mole as such. The locals know of this animal and call it a "Tuzo" but cannot describe it. The tunnels are about 4 inches in diameter. My gardener excavates and blocks the tunnels but despite our efforts he has brought down 2 mature and 1 young banana in the last 2 months. I have saved one mature plant, partially eaten, with props as it is due to flower.
Our only indication he has been working is a pile of excavated soil along one of his tunnels, which we discover at dawn.
As it works underground and at night, I can find no academic references or studies for this animal.
He can't be very intelligent. He could go up to a Banana dig down a few inches and start eating. Instead he excavates many yards of tunnel towards the banana, taking several days.
I am sure that it cannot be unique to Guatemala and must be found in other tropical regions.
My Internet searches have been fruitless.
John
Bananas
Is it possible to catch the thing digging at night. If it is already in a tunnel, it could be easy to catch and remove, or in the worst case spear the thing.
See if he'll eat rat poison. Try putting it down his tunnels. Like you said, "He's not too bright!" LOL!
Maybe you can catch him in a rodent glue trap.
I will try the rat poison. The glue trap is not available.
I blew some very potent insecticide up his lead in tunnel this morning. A very small amount will make humans very ill and kill small animals. Used to kill leaf cutter ants.
After lunch we found that he had kicked the soil with the powder out of the tunnel. Very rare for it to operate during the day.
The nearest creature that I can find is a Shrew but that eats insects and worms. An Earthworm is a very rare sight here. We find more tiny Coral Snakes than Worms.
WoW, what a sight! Ugly creatures aren't they? While we're on the subject of critters....we have a guest in the attic ......again. It's either a rat or squirrel, because it is pretty big. DD went to Lowes and is going to bring me some more d-con rat poisoning. It did the job last time.
Sadly many years ago we had a beautiful little dog killed from eating rat poison, so I know that it can kill a pretty large animal.
Good luck with your critter!
Well, after a little "digging" I found an little known animal similar to what you describe, but native to South America -mainly Argentina. It's called a Tuco-Tuco (kind of like Tuzo). From what I read it is a subterannean herbivorous rodent that is known to eat roots of plants, including bananas, and depending on the region vary greatly in size. It sounds like it may have all sorts of cousins (including cavies), so if that's not it maybe something close? Hope this helps solve your mystery!
P.S. There are people at the Natural History Museum of La Plata, Argentina that seem knowledgeable on the subject.
PEARSON'S TUCO-TUCO (Ctenomys pearsoni): SPECIES ACCOUNT
Central and southern South America, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.
That was some very smart research, ypu hit the nail on the head.
Reading the full writeups, the activities of these little ******** match mine exactly.
Our plan of action is now to use a vacuum cleaner on reverse to blow the very lethal insecticide into the tunnels leading out of the garden. If this does not work we will use plan B. This is a lot more fun. We flood the tunnels with gasoline vapour. Then with a long fuse(string soaked in kerosene) ignite it. I did this before with a very large Zompopo Ants nest. The explosion was spectacular and brought the neighbours running.
The Local's Spanish is so sloppy that passed from mouth to mouth Tuco can easily be Tuzo.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Ctenomyidae.html
Many thanks
The Tuco-tuco comes from the sound they make when alarmed.
Some of the Native Peoples dig them up for food.
Here is a photo of a smaller version. The other was an artists's impression.
Good luck with plan A and B! LOL!
We threw our d-con packs up in the attic and so far haven't heard from our little guest in the attic. I hope he's very hungry and chows down. Last time about a year ago every time I'd get ready for sleep they'd decide to play. We got no sleep for several days. It was very disturbing, literally.
Finally one day it stopped and has been quiet up until this evening earlier.
We've lived here 11 years and this is about the third time we've ever had a problem. So far the Dcon always works. Hopefully it will this time.
Keep us posted on the outcome! At the same time, do be SAFE! Take care of yourselves also!
As an alternative control method, how can I adopt one of those cute critters as a house pet?
Beauty(Cute) is very obviously in the eye of the beholder!!!!
Plan A has been executed. There was no air resistance so there must be other openings. We now have to watch and wait to see if it blocks the entrance again.
My young gardener was very excited and wanted to execute Plan B but he will have to curb his enthusiasm for a while.
Wow! Never have heard of this little beast - great research Iwellhoner! I wonder if you have managed to blow him (or yourself) up by now? ^_^. Hopefully they are not like most rodent type critters that have large families nearby...
Do tell us more about your place in Guatemala, I imagine it is lush and green like Carol and Daves homes on the BI. What do you grow?
Hey Jeanne - my bet it's squirrels! We don't have squirrels here (as far as I know), but every now and then after some good rains we have a mouse explosion in the grass fields behind my community and we get overrun with HUNDREDS of mice. Too many for all the feral cats and mongeese to take care of so we have to resort to mass destruction. A couple of years ago it was so bad that you couldn't buy d-con or sticky traps anywhere on Island - every shipment would immediately sell out because people would be waiting in line for the stores to open the boxes, it never even made it to the shelves!
Aloha to all.
Jenn
Sorry, cross posted...
LOL on your young gardener!
LOL. I wish I could be down there when you execute plan B. That would be fun to watch.
Definately, me too, Pepper!
DS heard the critter this evening so he hasn't eaten enough to do him in yet. We did get sleep last night. It might be a squirrel. The smokestack was open until day before yesterday so he could have gotten in then. So far he's only ventured over the top of the garage, not the whole house, so I've only heard it the once.
It's really chilly outside so I bet he's really glad he's inside, toasty and warm. I hope he eats, eats, eats the dcon! Fortunately there was a good supply of it on the Lowes' shelves. That'd be bad for it to be in such short supply!
Hope everyone is OK!
I know this is diffucult, but one can wrap a chicken wire like-thing Or any other block but it as to be buried one time I buried bricks, and then I used metal pans buried and those little SOB's could'nt touch the plant. Good luck to you.
Ctenomys pearsoni (Tuco-Tuco)
These are probably the first published photos of a living Tuco-Tuco.
On Monday my gardener's very ancient Grandfather came to visit. He had with him an antique Gin Trap. We opened up one of the tunnels and installed the trap.
This morning one of my problems was looking out of the hole. Cute aren't they?
However they have destroyed three mature Bananas to date.
I was told that there is a large family operating in my garden and woodland (the local underground Mafia) and the trapping will continue.
In modern countries the use of the Gin Trap has been illegal for as long as I can remember. Here in Guatemala Law and order are not a priority.
A full photo of our little friend. It has enormouse claws on it's front feet but retractable like a cat. Retracted here.
The teeth are ideal for chewing up my bananas but he has obviously never heard of Colgate.
Tuco-Tuco front claw.
Wow...that was fascinating! Your own National Geographic thread...those are some beaver teeth !
That is one ugly little son of a gun.
The story made me think of Caddyshack --does your gardener look like a Hispanic Bill Murray by any chance?
This thread is of a pair with the Hawaiian Hog thread from earlier this year.
He's really a hefty feller, isn't he? Sure glad he's yours and not my critter.....haha!
It's been peaceful here....so not sure if ours is a "goner" yet or not.....time will tell.
This animal is rare and not often seen except for the Social Species that lives in areas of Argentina. These guys live in large groups, feed above ground near their burrows and make a sound.
Since the 1800s 45 species have been named and they are found only in Brazil and southwards to Tierra del Fuego. The Natural History people agree that there is probably little or no difference between the species. Apparently there has been very little genetic change over the millenia and scientists (from DNA sampling) are wondering how they have survived.
Their existance in Guatemala is unknown. So I will name our species Ctenomys guatemaltensis and send it off to Berkeley.
Some Tuco-tucos live as families others occupy a single burrow. My main burrow is still open and has not been closed as in the past so hopefully mine was the solitary type.
There are other active animals in the village destroying Bananas, so the problem may re-occur at a later date.
Yes I have seen Caddy Shack and the similarity did occur to me....... chuckle
I have one remaining mature Banana that is about to give birth. Hopefully this will now survive and we will have about 20lbs of fruit for the New Year.
Wow, what an unusual looking creature, especially with that retractable claw. Thank you for sharing this info with us, I am so glad I don't have them.
Enjoy your nana's at Christmas - you have sure fought hard for them!
Sometimes it's hard to be grateful for the things we DO have --but it's sure not hard to be grateful for not having these hungry little fellas around.
Yeah, I'll stick with the pests that are bugs sized!
Well...mystery solved. Thanks so much for the update!!!!