I emailed my buddy Dan the Cornell entomologist, and he sent me he

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...dwasp.ssl.html

What interested me was that the wasp isn't the only problem: there's
also a fungus that it carries:

"The female inserts her ovipositor (egg-laying tube) into the wood and
lays a single egg. She will then drill up to four more holes. Toxic
mucus is injected during drilling. The last hole is packed with spores
of a symbiotic fungus (Amylostereum areolatum). The mucus causes the
foliage to wilt and yellow, creating ideal conditions for the spread of
the fungus. The fungus causes the wood to dry out, creating a more
favourable environment for egg hatching, and is later fed on by the
larvae. These effects together may kill the tree." For more on this, go
to:

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/.../sirnoce.shtml


So yes, this sounds serious, but this is only the *latest* serious
forest insect pest to be introduced in the last decade. Globalization
is a fact, and we have to live with the consequences.

Nina- who will give you a nifty powerpoint poster showing the life
cycle of the wood wasp, if you want.

Nina wrote:


So yes, this sounds serious, but this is only the *latest* serious
forest insect pest to be introduced in the last decade. Globalization
is a fact, and we have to live with the consequences.


Decade schmekade . . . we've been carelessly letting in
these pests ever since we "discovered" this place (the "new"
world).


Nina- who will give you a nifty powerpoint poster showing the life
cycle of the wood wasp, if you want.


Yes! But to _my_ gmail address, please.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Nature
encourages no looseness, pardons no errors. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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