What is eating my bananas - Ask Extension
Wondering what is eating my bananas and avocados. Left them out to ripen and found large chunks of them gone.. like a worm or insect had eaten it. A...
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What is eating my bananas #471253
Asked July 17, 2018, 7:14 PM EDT
Wondering what is eating my bananas and avocados. Left them out to ripen and found large chunks of them gone.. like a worm or insect had eaten it. A bunch of black dried stuff looking like seeds left right below the fruit, as if it was poop.. but It didn't look like typical mouse poop. Black stuff inside, too. I have never had mice to my knowledge.
Yakima County Washington
Expert Response
There could be a number of different things that are eating the fruit. I couldn't see any frass (poop) in the images, so that makes it more difficult to identify (my first thought was rodent, but you didn't see any tell-tale signs of mice).
Given the time of year, (and assuming the fruit was left out inside the house), you might be dealing with earwig damage. Earwigs tend to move into homes when outside temperatures start to rise. While they won't cause any structural damage to the house, they do have to ear (and left-out fruit is a good food option for them). https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/earwig
We definitely have earwigs here in Central WA. The "poop" looked like tiny black seeds. I have seen mouse poop and it did not look like mouse poop.. besides, there was a bunch of it right beneath the fruit.
Thank you so much for this information. I will avoid leaving out fresh fruit until the weather cools.. We have had 90-100 temps this past week. I put the remnants of the banana in a sealed zip lock bag where the bananas were yesterday and nothing had disturbed it this morning. I will try not to provide any food for earwigs or any other varmint until we are back into cooler weather.. or winter... Thank you so much for this information. So glad to have found this site to ask questions. Thank you!