NMI warned to be on the lookout for little fire ants

 The community is urged to be on the lookout for little fire ants and to report any possible sightings to prevent these invasive pests from wreaking devastation in the CNMI.

Little fire ants are tiny, nondescript ants that can be found on the underside of leaves, in the ground or in treetops eating other insects, snails, geckos, baby chicks, and whatever they find in their paths.

“If [people] think that they have this ant or something similar, bring it in and we’ll take a look at it and we’ll let them know what they have,” entomology professor Ross Miller of the University of Guam College of Natural and Applied Sciences said yesterday.

Despite their size, little fire ants are “probably the worst insect pest that could possibly come to the islands,” Miller said, as their colonies can kill all small animals and insects and “basically make life miserable for anybody who lives around it.”

Little fire ants have already infested the neighboring island of Guam and are widespread at about seven different sites from north to south of the island.

“It looks like the infestations are pretty well established and it looks like it’s been around 10 years maybe,” Miller told Saipan Tribune.

While they have yet to do DNA testing to determine where Guam’s little fire ants came from, Miller believes the pest came from Hawaii, which got it from Florida, which came from the Caribbean. He said it might have been transported through plant materials that were brought in.

A surveillance project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has allowed the search for little fire ants in various areas in the CNMI such as commercial and private farms, plant nurseries, the Puerto Rico Dump, Marpi landfill, and even the transfer station.

Fortunately, no sightings of the little fire ants have been detected so far, said Miller.

“It’s very good news. But because it’s now [in] Guam, for sure there’s always the potential that it’s going to come. What we really need help from is for the local population to be aware,” emphasized Miller.

Miller is on island, along with Dr. Cas Vanderwoude, state ant specialist from the University of Hawaii Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit, and pest survey specialist Yolisa Ishibashi of the USDA APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine, to conduct the Invasive Species Workshop.

The workshop is a collaborative effort among partner government agencies, which allowed for the training of some eight staffers of the Department of Land and Natural Resources Quarantine Division at the Commonwealth Ports Authority conference room yesterday.

Marianne Teregeyo, special assistant to the DLNR secretary, said the workshop will teach Quarantine staffers how to set up traps to detect and prevent potential damage caused by these pests.