The latest news about entomology, brought to you by the Entomological Society of America
By Meredith Swett Walker A spate of tree deaths in California has arborists, park managers, and home owners alarmed. Keen-eyed tree caretakers might notice a cluster of tiny holes in the bark of affected trees—almost as if the tree had been shot with a Lilliputian shotgun. But the culprit is not a tiny tree hitman […]
By Jiri Hulcr, Ph.D. Ambrosia beetles include some of the scariest invasive bugs. These tiny relatives of bark beetles travel the globe in wooden packaging used on commercial ships. They take their food with them: Instead of eating the wooden crates, ambrosia beetles grow symbiotic fungi inside the timber just like little farmers. As a […]
It’s never too early to work toward preventing the arrival of a potentially destructive invasive species. That’s why researchers at the University of Florida have developed a model to estimate the possible financial cost to the American forestry sector of a newly discovered beetle in China, should it arrive on U.S. shores. The beetle, first […]
By John P. Roche Spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii), is an invasive fruit fly species from eastern Asia, first seen in the United States in 2008. The species is devastating to fruit crops, causing economic losses in the U.S. of hundreds of millions of dollars. Spotted wing drosophila feeds on a wide range of host […]
To slightly modify an old adage, you can catch more flies with increased levels of acetoin, acetic acid, and ethanol than with methionol. Specifically, the fly in question is spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii), an invasive pest in North American and Europe that attacks several fruit crops. A lure for catching and monitoring in D. […]
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