The specific name alfari honours a Costa Rican zoologist Anastasio Alfaro.

It is an obligatory symbiont of evergreen trees in the genus Cecropia, forming colonies in the hollow stems.

[2] The tree provides nourishment for the ants in the form of Müllerian bodies, glandular areas on the leaf stalks that produce oily secretions, nectar from the female flowers and pearl bodies on the surfaces of the leaves.

Some of the ant larvae develop into reproductives, which remain in the colony and start to breed, while others become workers.

Because of this, older Cecropia trees often have dilapidated foliage, are infested with other insects and foraging ants of other species, and have vines growing over them.