Abstract
The white-footed ant, Technomyrmex brunneus, was newly introduced and established in a remote island of Japan and has caused unacceptable damage to the daily life of residents. To establish proper control measures, the present study investigated whether T. brunneus is effectively attracted to commercially available poison baits used to exterminate common household pest ants and the Argentine ant in Japan. Cafeteria experiments using three types of nontoxic baits and eight types of commercial poison baits for ants were conducted in the field, and the attractiveness was compared among the baits. The liquid poison bait “Arimetsu,” which consists of 42.6% water, 55.4% sugar, and 2.0% borate, and nontoxic 10% (w/v) sucrose water showed the highest attractiveness. On the other hand, other commercial poison baits were not as attractive. Therefore, sucrose liquid is the most effective attractive component to use in poison baits for T. brunneus.
Highlights
The white-footed ant, Technomyrmex brunneus Forel, 1895, is widespread in South, Southeast, and East Asia, which includes India, Sri Lanka to Indochina, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, Taiwan, China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan
In the first trial conducted on June 20, the bait series consisted of four commercial poison baits [Fumakilla Ultra Suno Ari Fumakilla (USF), Kincho Ariyou Combat (AC), Earth Garden Hyper Arinosu Korori (HAK), and Arimetsu (AM)] and three non-poison baits [i.e., 10% (w/v) sucrose water (SW), 10% (w/v) honey water (HW), and peanut cream (PC; https://www.sonton.co.jp/products/familycup/)]; filtered tap water (FTW) was used as a negative control (Table 1)
Of the three ant species, T. brunneus is extremely dominant in all locations, while the number of attracted individuals varied widely depending on the locations and time windows; the standard deviation was large for each bait (Table 3)
Summary
The white-footed ant, Technomyrmex brunneus Forel, 1895, is widespread in South, Southeast, and East Asia, which includes India, Sri Lanka to Indochina, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, Taiwan, China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan. In Japan, the species has been recorded in the Ryukyus (including the Daito Islands), Ogasawara Islands (Chichi-jima, Ototo-jima and Ani-jima), Volcano Islands (Iwo-jima), Minamitori-shima, Kyushu (Kagoshima Prefecture, Aoshima), Shikoku (southern part), Izu Islands (Hachijo-jima), and Kanagawa Prefecture (Yokohama: Naka-ku: Kamome-cho) (Terayama, 2020; Terayama et al, 2014, 2018). It has been found indoors in Shimoda City, Shizuoka Pref. “Ashijiro-hirafushi-ari” or “Technomyrmex albipes” studied previously in Japan are likely to be reidentified as Technomyrmex brunneus (Terayama et al, 2014; Yamane et al, 2018)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call