I suspect beetles and or grubs that may be in the base. I would do some digging around in the ground and in the base of the fallen plant. Whatever...it doesn't sound good.

I have had rabbits eat the stems of my in-ground planted bananas before. I don't remember them digging down under the ground to get at the corm though but they might.
I have seen squirrels jump from pot to pot in my yard taking bites out of the stems of baby banana plants too. They didnt keep eating any certain one ..just tasted them lol (the buggers).

Oh yeah I totally forgot about this incident: This winter I had some bananas overwintering in pots in the garage. A few had been dug up and eaten all the way off. I had thought it was the dog because she was in there a few cold nights. Turns out we saw a large rat a few days later in the garage and I think that is what it was! One of the bananas wasn't even a edible one, it was a blood banana. The other one was a edible double mahoi pup- chewed it all the way off. So it could be rats!
~Lenette

My guess would be rats as well. It looks like they are after nesting material or to build a nest at the base of the tree.

Hmm, I don't think it could be rats, because the hunks of flesh taken are so huge. The area looks more like Beavers were at work(G), but of course they don't live here, plus they like hard wood.

My JRT does a great job of eliminating vermin on the property. The only rats she cannot get to are the ones in our wooden shed, which is at the opposite corner of the property from the gnawed trees.

I've always wanted a Capybara.. Maybe hubby bought me a Birthday gift that he is keeping a secret?

I'm off this weekend, so I'll watch the dogs and 'Nanas carefully to see if I can find the culprit.

The damage happens FAST! Normal plants one day, and downed/missing ones the next.

I can't imagine my lazy Mastiffs exerting themselves enough in this heat to chew down such big plants! They are indoors 20-23 hours a day.

Lisa

Maybe they are those huge African Gambian rats that were/are (?) invading the keys..I saw a show on Animal Planet that showed these huge critters. Pretty freaky!

Maybe you can set out a trap. You would prob have to put some fencing around it to keep the other animals out though. I guess you could also set up a critter cam that would be less invasive.
I am curious now as to what is doing that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Huge Pouched Rats

What about an iguana? Sorry you are having such a problem.

Armadillos? Could that hollowed out hole in the last picture be a den?

Maybe the Weston/Wellington black bear relocated to your property?

I went outside to cage some of my remaining Bananas, and found *another* one that was half eaten. The injury is huge and it is just luck that the tree is still standing. It cannot survive such abuse. The hole is big enough to place my arm in, including my clenched fist. The damage is bigger at the bottom, but extends upward, and the top of the eaten area is ragged and shredded.

The dogs were indoors, or escorted outside today. I watched them closely. They had no opportunity to do this. They are inside every night, all night.

I'm baffled!

An Armadillo is something I hadn't considered. I've never seen any in the Farms, in over 20 years here. But, there is something digging into the hollows where previous trees were destroyed. There are round depressions that hold water left.

Weird!

Lisa

Holy smokes!!!! So sorry about your banana trees!

Keep us posted on the outcome.

Call your extension service and ask. A couple years ago Jean Joyner told me about a borer that attacked bananas but I am not sure what the damage would look like.

I suspect rats or armadillo, too, although I have gotten plants from places like HD with the roots half chewed off, tops looking slightly wilted. After further investigation, I discovered millipedes up inside what was left of the stem. They are not super fast, but insidious, eating constantly. I discarded the plants so millipede eggs wouldn't hatch and then the larvae transfer to my other plants.
If you have had alot of rain, maybe the bottom of the older trunk/root is/has rotted, encouraging insects which break down rotting vegetation...pillbugs, millipedes, etc. There could also be a combination of factors...rotting, fungus, and bugs.
Rake up all the banana debris and find the tunnels/holes/nests. Look for grubs, crickets, millipedes. Have a look around at night...that's probably when it/they(??) is doing the damage. Poke around the base of the plants, gently with a gloved finger...trunk flesh should be hard, not at all soft...does the top wiggle? (It shouldn't.)
You can borrow a 'havahart' trap which traps animals live and unharmed, (from you local animal shelter) or buy one at 'Tractor Supply', although I don't know what you would use for bait...banana trunks?? ...sort of depends on what it (they??) is. Set your dogs loose in the area in the day time and see if THEY find anything...if there is an animal, they will alert, if insects, they won't...but only if they will 'drop it' on your command if they find something so you can kill it. Banana plants are sweet and tasty for rodents...(muskrats come to mind)...and this may be a dedicated animal...bananas only (and maybe for bird of paradise and traveler palm).
Please contact your local county extension office agents who are on the 'cutting edge' of new agricultural developments, may have more/better suggestions, and need to know of your problem in case it turns into something... bigger, new, more widespread. (They like a good mystery.)

I do own both large and small Havahart traps. Like you said, what kind of bait? I really don't know "why" the damage is occurring, or what the creature is looking for. Trunk flesh is firm, new pups are unharmed, shredded areas are up to 12" tall above the gouged out base.

There are no boring tunnels, or feces from tunneling insects. The trees look perfectly healthy, are fruiting, then I find them toppled or eaten out and ready to fall. Most damage is ground level. And the areas inside the old trunks are hollowed out so there are "pools" of moisture there.

I've had Banana plants for at least 15 years. I've not seen this before.

I did lose an Ae Ae to a boring insect, but that is the only one I found with obvious tunnels, and that was years ago.

More and more, I'm suspecting one of the dogs..

They love Fruit Tree Hill because it is so cool and shady.

But I also lost a mature tree in a totally different planting area.

I'm fencing them in with circles of wire mesh.

Lisa

I tend not to suspect the dogs unless there is something they are trying to get to...maybe they can hear it/them working on the inside.
As you know, bananas are herbs and will send up pups after the blooming and fruiting of the mother plant, which you can then cut off, or knock over...the root mass will still be there supporting the pups. The mother plant will die back to the ground in any case, but in order to save the rest of the root mass, you need to find out what the problem is. If the bananas are on a hill that is well draining, rotting is probably not a factor. It looks from the picture like something is burrowing up through the root system into the inside of the trunk, not burrowing in through the trunk. The dogs probably sense this if they are up there scouting around.

Hi - FWIW, the bananas in the photos don't really look 'eaten', more like shredded &/or rotted....? 2nd pic reminds me of a cocker spaniel we had long ago & what he did to our back door = J

But alternately, I was wondering if there might be some wild (introduced) animal around - feral pigs, monkeys?

Since bananas are not trees (dicot- 2 seed leaves, like beans, shrubs, and trees), but are grasses (monocot- one seed leaf, like corn, palms, and sugarcane), the fibers in the trunk are characteristically like those of other grasses, and not like trees at all...no rings, no cambium layer, no bark... just live bundles of fibers. The trunk is not shredded, but hollowed out from the inside; as the fibers dry, they look sort of frayed, like dried sugar cane or corn stalks. Are you near any cane fields? Do you have moles? Mice? Unless you make sure nothing can tunnel under the mesh from several feet away...perhaps lay some quarter inch hardware cloth on the ground over the roots AND encircle the plants. But, if the problem is rodents, they can climb and gnaw through all kinds of things.
Sorry I can't be more helpful...I do know how you feel.

Have you called your Ag. Center or is there a Rare Fruit Society in your area? These places may have information on this. Just a thought.

Lisa, did you ever find out what was eating them? Was it wild pigs? Did you get them?

Hey Katkin,
I have not had another tree destroyed since I made small-meshed fences around the Banana mats.

The mystery is not solved, but the damages have stopped.

If I ever figure it out, I will let everyone konw.

Lisa

Hi Lisa,
I wonder if the chickens could be pecking into the bananas to get at bugs or moisture inside?
They can do a lot of work in a short time.
Just something that hadn't been mentioned.
Glad to hear the problem has stopped.

Well, I'm glad the damage has stopped!
The way you describe the damage it couldn't be a pig or a chicken...but an amadillo, yes. But why?
Most of us have grown bananas a long time and no one has seen this damage. I had plenty of armadillos and they primarily go after grubs and earthworm...that sort of thing. They really like to dig but they wouldn't dig in a banana unless they were after something...grubs?
I'm thinking that if you put some builders sand around the area and smooth it out you could see what is tracking through the area...just an idea.

Well, glad to hear whatever it was the fence stopped them. :o) Yes, let us know if you ever find the culprit.

The turtle has moved along. If it wasn't a groundhog family it might well have been a couple of good sized land turtles. I've had wood turtles decimating my gardens in the past up here in NC. Too bad you didn't get the fencing idea sooner. Hopefully the banana plants will resprout next year.

I have the same problem with my banana trees but than the huge bite starts from the middle shredding it downwards. Not only that but the bite marks are some what similar to human teeth marks only bigger and to make things weird is that there are no cows or big pigs near or passes through. If there were wouldn't the bite Mark's be Similar to that of its teeth Mark's?

I WONDER... IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO CAN EXPLAIN THIS?

Gophers

Interesting, as I clicked on this to see the latest comment, I was thinking of bears too...

My Red Abyssinian Banana tree was eaten by rats in my basement. I live in the mtns of WNC so it is not hardy here so I dig it up every year and store in basement. Rats have eaten half way into the trunk near the bottom so not sure if it will recover or not.. highly doubt it.

The stem doesn't really matter - it's the corms that produce new plants. If they're intact, you should be OK. I've cut off bananas at the base, only to have them grow back from the core.

I live on property overlooking a lake in Florida. My 4 large 2-week planted banana plants were doing so well until one day we came home to find one shredded so badly that its trunk was at a 120 degree angle, like a tree almost cut down, and the trunks on the other 3 had shredded damage also. The next day, the 1 tree finished falling over.

Then I caught the culprits in the act--they were Muscovy ducks! They were nibbling on the trunks at beak height and shredded them downward. Further research online yielded that indeed ducks and squirrels love the sweet trunks of banana trees. Further research suggested a deterrent for ducks: those wind pinwheels or spirals, the sparkly kind. They do not like to see sparkly movement. No problem since I installed the pinwheels at strategic places around the banana grove.