The Asian Longhorned Beetle

Background

invasive species: a quick definition

An invasive species is an organism that is brought from its natural habitat to another ecosystem. Usually, humans cause this transfer, whether deliberately or accidentally, but sometimes large-scale natural disasters, such as hurricanes or floods, can move organisms as well.

Why Do We Need to Combat Invasive Species?

Since the species has evolved for millions of years within its own habitat and niche, this sudden movement can easily disrupt the affected ecosystem. The species has no natural predator to control its growth, often only stopping itself after eating all the available food in the ecosystem. They are extremely destructive to an ecosystem, and if left uncontrolled, can cause entire food webs to collapse and the ruination of many native organisms' well-being.

Basic Information about the asian longhorned beetle

Scientific Name: Anoplophora glabripennis

Genus: Anoplophora

Common Names: Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB), Starry Sky Beetle, Sky Beetle

Native To: East Asia (Japan, the Koreas, parts of Eastern China)

Threatened Species (Trees): Red Maple (Acer rudum), Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum), Sugar maple (Acer saccharum), American Elm (Ulmus americana), White Poplar (Populus alba), Laurel Willow (Salix pentandra), White Willow (Salix alba), Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra), Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera)

Threatened Areas: Northeastern and Northern United States, Eastern Canada

Distinguishing Features: Less than 5 centimeters long, shiny black outer exoskeleton, black-and-white antennae as long as their bodies, six long white-blue legs, ability to fly

Range

The Asian longhorned beetle was first spotted in Brooklyn, a district of New York City, in 1996. It is believed to have arrived to the U.S. from China, through the wood and plant trade, where it hid in soil and bored into logs. Since then, it has spread as far west as Chicago, Illinois, and as far north as Quebec City, Canada, only to be stopped by Canada's icy winter frosts. Despite many quests to stop it, the beetle continues to move west in the U.S. hundreds of miles per year.

reproduction and behavior

A female Asian longhorned beetle can lay up to 100 eggs in her lifetime, allowing the beetles to quickly infest an area in just a few days. However, the beetle's main strength is also the easiest way to identify it. Since the eggs are fairly large, up to 7 millimeters in length, the female beetle must protect it by boring it a shelter within the bark of a tree.

Despite the 100 eggs per female seeming quite small in comparison to other insects, the larvae of the beetle begin destroying the inside of the tree the minute they hatch, and continue to eat out the tree during the duration of the winter, safely protected inside the tree trunk. During the spring, adults bore another exit hole through the tree bark, proceed to mate, and start the cycle again.

A single tree can have thousands of holes bored into it, destroying the tree's passageways through which water and other nutrients are transported.

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