- Jan 7, 2002
- 12,755
- 3
- 0
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Despite dozens of interceptions at U.S. ports, a public enemy has infiltrated the nation's borders. Taken captive in Fulton County, N.Y., and identified by a Cornell University expert, the adult female alien is the only one of its kind ever discovered in the eastern United States.
The discovery of a single specimen of Sirex noctilio Fabricius, an Old World woodwasp, raises red flags across the nation because the invasive insect species has devastated up to 80 percent of pine trees in areas of New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa. If established in the United States, it would threaten pines coast-to-coast, particularly in the pine-dense states in the Southeast. One target would be loblolly pines in Georgia.
Finding one bug in a trap is no small matter. Where there's one, there's likely to be more, says E. Richard Hoebeke, a Cornell senior extension associate in entomology. "Whenever you find an insect in a trap, it probably is established."
Hoebeke was sifting through thousands of bark beetles caught in routine screening traps set by the New York State Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey (CAPS) program, in search of any of 10 exotic species of bark beetles, when he stumbled across the specimen of S. noctilio.
"I recognized it immediately,"
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May05/woodwasp.ssl.html
The discovery of a single specimen of Sirex noctilio Fabricius, an Old World woodwasp, raises red flags across the nation because the invasive insect species has devastated up to 80 percent of pine trees in areas of New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa. If established in the United States, it would threaten pines coast-to-coast, particularly in the pine-dense states in the Southeast. One target would be loblolly pines in Georgia.
Finding one bug in a trap is no small matter. Where there's one, there's likely to be more, says E. Richard Hoebeke, a Cornell senior extension associate in entomology. "Whenever you find an insect in a trap, it probably is established."
Hoebeke was sifting through thousands of bark beetles caught in routine screening traps set by the New York State Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey (CAPS) program, in search of any of 10 exotic species of bark beetles, when he stumbled across the specimen of S. noctilio.
"I recognized it immediately,"
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May05/woodwasp.ssl.html
Facebook
Twitter