Warning! Be on the lookout for the Asian Longhorn Beetle last spotted near the Faulkner Hospital in Boston. Considered armed and dangerous to your trees!
Description: Authorities say this is a very lazy beetle that doesn't like to travel but it does have an appetite for several different types of trees including maple species, birches, elms, horse-chestnut and willows.
It is shiny black with bright white spots and a long antenna. While It hasn't been spotted in Concord in the 15 years that Tree Warden Peter Flynn has been on the lookout, he says he asks people to turn in suspicious bugs when they see them but that most of the time they turn in look alikes like the Whitespotted Sawyer. Still Flynn says its "nice to having a lot of eyes out there."
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Flynn says he is inspecting trees all the time checking them for the pest. He says the federal government is overseeing the Faulkner Hospital infestation and with local authorities has set up a mile and a half radius around the initial site to survey for the Asian Longhorn Beetle.
This survey will take three years to complete. Flynn says Worcester faces the same situation after the Asian Longhorn Beetle was spotted lurking around there in 2008.
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At the same time Worcester has been hit by an Emerald Ashborer infestation losing 25,000 trees in the process. While this pest sticks to Ash it tends to move fast and to attack the tops of trees.
The fear after the sighting of the Asian Longhorn Beetle in Worcester was amplified because it is at the foot of the Quabbin reservoir and is near the sugaring industry in Vermont where a tree infestation could cost the local economy millions of dollars in lost revenue. The Asian Longhorn Beetle has no known predators according to Flynn.
Scientists think that the Asian Longhorn Beetle has been active in Worcester for the last five years.
