Mango-Eating Beetle From China Discovered On Ship Docking In Florida

MIAMI — A long-horned beetle that has decimated mango plantations in China was found for the first time in the United States at the Port of Miami aboard a freighter transporting cargo from Hong Kong, federal officials said Friday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture inspectors found a single live beetle March 1 in a shipment of granite counter tops from Hong Kong, said Jennifer Connors, an agency spokeswoman in Miami.

The beetle, Rhytidodera bowringii, has destroyed more than 100 mango plantations on Hainan Island in southern China, she said. It burrows into a mango tree's trunk and branches, causing limb breakage and eventually death.

"The fact that it's such an aggressive beetle toward mango crops, and South Florida is the No. 1 mango growing area in the United States, we were very lucky to catch this," Connors said. The beetle found in Miami was about 4 inches long, considerably larger than the species' average length of 1.5 inches, she said.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10043

:eyes:

:toast:

trade with us.

They're waiting for the first shipment to arrive.

that should be one BIG ASS BEETLE! Found it? How could they miss it? :silly:

(Weapon of Mango Destruction)

They "were very lucky to catch this"...??? How stupid do they have to be to believe they have averted disaster by finding one bug? Do they know anything about bugs?

And how many containers do they actually inspect, at the level of detail to detect an insect?

"Lucky" sure isn't the word that comes to my mind!

edit to add: this is comparable to the USDA saying they were "lucky" to find "the" cow with BSE.

It's a question of how stupid they think we are.

. . . is how little comes up on google for this beetle. Mostly references to this article or things in Chinese. Less than 3 pages of links total.

there are usually others.

What about the other cargoes from that freighter?

:evilfrown: