domingo, 18 de mayo de 2014

Red Palm Weevil. Picudo Rojo.

The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, is a species of snout beetle also known as the Asian palm weevil or sago palm weevil. Weevil larvae can excavate holes in the trunk of a palm trees up to a metre long, thereby weakening and eventually killing the host plant. As a result, the weevil is considered a major pest in palm plantations, including the coconut palm, date palm and oil palm. Originally from tropical Asia, the red palm weevil has spread to Africa and Europe, reaching the Mediterranean in the 1980s. It was first recorded in Spain in 1994, and in France in 2006. (Source: Wikipedia)
The effects of red palm weevil have been devastating and still remain .
From 2005 there was an explosion of this pest out of control areas , which affected even Elche (Alicante), where the largest palm grove in Europe, due to increased demand for palm trees to the urbanization of avenues and areas many residential villages favored the entry of this parasite from exporting countries.
In addition , the strong demand for palms led to cheap ones and fewer controls but that ended up contaminating Canaria palm species , the most common in Spain . This was another little-known effect of the real estate boom , in this case luxury estates and municipalities with ornamental reforms.
The plague affects strongly, Murcia, Valencia, Andalusia .
The only solution so far is prevention , controlling the entry of new palm trees from other countries. With palm trees affected , the remedy is to destroy the plant. But now it has been discovered that a native fungus can destroy this insect. The first trials in Elche with the native fungus ' Beauveria bassiana" have demonstrated a 75 % efficacy against the red palm weevil , in biological control options are investigated to end this scourge, which affects the Elche palm grove. (Source from e-newspapers: elmundo.es and levante-emv.com)

Image: that what happen when you use autofocus. Always focus background.
That red palm weevil appeared a few days ago at my backyard, but I did not know the name of that beetle, and it went flying away. Next time I will have to kill it.

3 comentarios:

Anónimo dijo...

Hi thank you for all of that information I had never heard of the red palm weevil.
I hope we do not have it here in Ireland.

Irish Molly6106

William Kendall dijo...

A colourful critter, even though it is destructive.

Paskui dijo...

Que bonito que es para el daño que hace