Texas Entomological News

Excitement buzzed among nature enthusiasts Tuesday morning at news that the U.S.'s first Painted White butterfly had been spotted at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission.

The sighting of the female insect sporting white, yellow and dark gray-striped wings marks it as this year's third butterfly record. The second record happened Saturday when a Four-spotted Sailor was seen in a wild olive tree at the North American Butterfly Association's International Butterfly Park in Mission.

"I was walking along the walkway, and I was just amazed at the beauty of the butterfly floating around in front of me," said the self-professed birding enthusiast.

Around 11 a.m., a park ranger yelled for a camera, he said, and "the butterfly people started swarming in there" - 20 people soon arrived. Initially, the butterfly was thought to be a Green Heliconian.

Kim Davis and her husband came in after reading about the unusual sighting on an Internet posting. They are full-time RVers living the winter months at Bentsen Palm Village RV Park across from Bentsen Park.

"We said 'Oh my God' and raced over there," said Davis, who spotted the country's first recorded Pale Mylon in Arizona in September.

"In the U.S., it's a pretty big thing," she said, adding spectators also saw a rare Blue-eyed Sailor.

Jennifer C. Smith covers health, science and environment issues at The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4462.

NYTimes.com

To Save Endangered Butterfly, Become a Butterfly

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: November 8, 2005

LLANO DE LAS PAPAS, Mexico, Nov. 3 - Francisco Gutiérrez has trouble expressing precisely when the idea came to him. It was six years ago and it crept up on him like the dawn, a connection between himself and the monarch butterfly.

As an expert hang glider and ultralight pilot from the mountains where the monarchs winter, he felt a strange kinship with them, and the notion of flying with them on their yearly migration from Canada to Mexico became first an itch, then an obsession, his family members said.

World Wildlife Fund, via Associated Press

So when Mr. Gutiérrez wheeled his ultralight plane painted like a monarch over the butterfly sanctuary here at noon on Thursday and brought it swooping in to land on a stretch of mountain highway, it marked the rarest of human experiences, a dream come true.

He had traveled more than 4,375 miles from Montreal to Michoacán State, following the butterflies at low altitude. He logged more than 90 hours of flying over 72 days, averaging about 60 miles a day, stopping dozens of times to talk to scientists and butterfly fanatics, in a feat of aviation meant to call attention to the insect's precarious situation.

"Sometimes I felt like a butterfly, not a man," said the curly-haired, blue-eyed Mr. Gutiérrez, who is known as Vico. "I can now feel what they face in some of the different parts of the Canada, the United States and Mexico."

The first waves of butterflies were fluttering into the dense fir forests here as Mr. Gutiérrez landed to a hero's welcome from two governors, representatives of the United States and Canadian governments, several government officials, dozens of school children dressed as butterflies, native American dancers and a Mazahua Indian chief.

One of the high points of the flight came early on Sept. 6, when Mr. Gutiérrez flew his ultralight, Papalotzin, an indigenous word for the monarch, over Niagara Falls with a cloud of butterflies beneath him.

First U.S. dengue cases found here

Health officials investigating more suspected infections, urge protection against mosquitoes

October 28, 2005 — State health officials have confirmed two cases of dengue fever in the Brownsville area, the first contracted in the United States.

Several other cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been under investigation for months, but officials stress the public health risk is no worse now than before the fever was discovered.

“It’s really not much more (dangerous) than normal because you always have the rare chance of a mosquito-borne disease,” explained Dr. Brian Smith, Region 11 director for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “Just clean up your yard so you don’t have any places for mosquitoes to breed.”

Brownsville woman survives rare dengue fever, officials say

Severe case in Brownsville a warning to take precautions.

State health officials said Wednesday that they think a young woman in Brownsville has the nation's first case of dengue hemorrhagic fever acquired from a mosquito in the United States. She got medical care and survived.

The woman, who was not named and is believed to be in her 20s or 30s, is among 15 cases being investigated in Brownsville for dengue illness. Three of those cases have the more serious form of the illness, dengue hemorrhagic fever, while the others might have dengue fever, said Dr. Brian Smith, director of the Texas Department of State Health Services region that includes South Texas.

The three others with dengue hemorrhagic fever were bitten by mosquitos outside of the United States, Smith said, possibly in Mexico.

Boll weevil eradication begins in Rio Grande Valley
Southwest Farm Press - Overland Park, KS, USA

Aug 30, 2005 11:53 AM
By Georgia Tuxbury

Last fall, Lower Rio Grande Valley farmers voted to be part of the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation. Out of 17 zones in Texas, the Lower Rio Grande Valley was the next to last zone to do so. (Northern Blacklands came in about a month later.)

Holding Rio Grande farmers back was memory of an eradication program some years ago that many producers felt brought more problems than it solved. Also, being in close proximity to Mexico, many felt efforts on this side of the border were of little use when Mexican farmers seemed to be doing nothing. And farmers must dig deeply into their pockets to fund eradication: $28 per acre for irrigated land, $14 for dryland cotton.

But times have changed: Mexico now has an eradication program of its own and Rio Grande Valley farmers realize they have to band together to go after the boll weevil. They figure money they spend to get into the program they will recoup easily considering the damage done by the weevil and the cost of insecticides they applied to control it.

Manda Cattaneo, the cotton Integrated Pest Management entomologist at Texas A & M Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Weslaco, has high hopes for the eradication program.

"It will make a big difference by lowering the weevil population for next spring," Cattaneo says. Spraying didn’t take place until the end of June when cotton was at 10 percent cracked bole. This is the way the program was designed to work.

Michael O’Connor, from the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation, says the program begins slowly. “In the first year, we don’t begin spraying until late in the season to avoid problems with secondary pests. The goal is to reduce significantly the number of weevils that will diapause and re-emerge to damage the following year’s crop.”

He says many growers report increased yield because diapause weevils do not feed on top bolls.

In the future, eradication will eliminate insecticides for boll weevils and drastically reduce use for other insect pests.

The eradication program operates through mapping, trapping and control. A Global Positioning Satellite system helps map all fields in a zone. Weekly monitoring of boll weevil activity in traps placed around the mapped fields is key. Besides a pheromone that attracts the insects, traps include an insecticide strip so that the trap not only determines weevil population, but also acts as a control.

Early planting and harvest, timely stalk removal and insecticide application make up the control phase. The foundation applies Malathion ULV [Ultra Low Volume], 12 ounces per acre weekly during the diapause stage. In subsequent years, trap catches determine spry schedules. Spraying will begin when cotton reaches pinhead square and will continue until harvest or the plant is killed with defoliants or desiccants. Stalk destruction also is mandated.

Most spraying is by aerial application. Applicators use ground rigs when aerial spraying is not feasible. The program takes great care to confine spraying to target fields and to protect beneficial insect populations and honeybee hives.

It takes about four to six years to confirm eradication in a particular zone. Areas with less weevil activity may reach eradication earlier. The Texas Department of Agriculture has developed guidelines to determine when an area qualifies for a declaration of eradication.

TDA is responsible for oversight of the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation operations. TDA also sets the assessment each year. Growers supply most of the funds for eradication. State and federal cost-share provides the rest.

Experts estimate Valley cotton acreage about 20 percent down from last year’s 207,000 acres.

Decades of collecting insects pays off

By Jim Schlosser - Staff Writer
News-Record.com
Greensboro, North Carolina

For Arnold Van Pelt Jr., his work isn't a matter of someone has to do it. It's a matter of someone loving to do it.

Van Pelt, the distinguished Moore professor of biology emeritus at Greensboro College, has spent most summers since 1969 watching ants in Big Bend National Park in Texas.

As cougars, black bears and rattlesnakes lurk nearby, Van Pelt concentrates mainly on two species belonging to the genus Pogonomyrmex. Ants in this genus grow beards.

He's also collected ants and other insects elsewhere, including along the Blue Ridge Parkway and on Mt. Mitchell in Western North Carolina.

He estimates his collection numbers 5,000 insects, 80 percent of them ants.

The collection is now Washington-bound to the Smithsonian Institution, at the Smithsonian's request. It's an honor for Van Pelt, somewhat like a major library asking for the papers of a writer or statesman.

The Smithsonian has assured him the collection won't be tucked away unseen ever again.

"The material will be used, not thrown away,'' he says. "Some of it is going to be important. Some of it won't be.''

August 11, 2005

Salt cedar foes put hopes in saltcedar beetles

John MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer

The only important critters being counted around Big Spring these days are small olive-colored beetles recruited from the Mediterranean because of their singular appetite for salt cedar.

At a test site outside Big Spring run by research scientists from the U.S. Agriculture Department, the beetles carefully are being acclimated to life in Texas, which has more than its share of salt cedar.

"Last summer you could come out here and all you'd see was green. Now we can find hundreds of adults on a single tree, and trees that are defoliated. It feels pretty good," said James Tracy, 43, who began working on the multiagency project in 1992.

Salt cedar, also known as tamarisk, was introduced to the United States from Asia as an ornamental plant early in the 19th century. It later was spread via government programs to contain stream erosion and now overruns roughly 2 million acres in the West.

"In the western half of Texas, it's basically taking over all of the riparian (river) systems. It comes in and chokes out native vegetation. And when it gets dense, it takes so much water, it pushes the water tables down and reduces river flows," said Charles Hart, a range specialist with the Texas Cooperative Extension.

Tests confirm that a 42-year-old Fort Worth man has the first human case of West Nile virus in North Texas this year.

City officials said they have no plans to spray to control the spread of mosquitoes because of possible health and environmental concerns.

July 28, 2005

1st local West Nile case of '05 confirmed
July traditionally is when the virus starts showing up

By LEIGH HOPPER Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Houston has recorded its first confirmed human case of West Nile virus this year — a 60-year-old woman who developed meningitis — health officials said Wednesday.

The woman was hospitalized, but recuperated and was released from the hospital a week ago, the Houston Department of Health and Human services said.

"We're in the season and everyone needs to take personal precautions," said Houston health department spokeswoman Kathy Barton.

The case comes right on schedule: Since 2002, the year the mosquito-borne disease first hit Houston, human West Nile infections have cropped up in July.

Houston also has followed the pattern of illness seen in other states, with high numbers of severe infections the first year of the epidemic, tapering off in subsequent years.

Increase In Darkling Beetles
KFOXtv.com - El Paso, TX, USA

Stormy weather keeps many of us indoors but it has a lot of insects out and about.

Pest control specialists say heavy rains boost many insect populations, including a critter, we commonly call stink bugs.

While the thought of having more of them around may be a little creepy to some, these bugs pose little or no threat to us.

"They said they'd seen more stink bugs is what we call them pinacates in Spanish they are really not a stink bug they are actually a darkling beetle and they feed on just dead leaf matter and dried plants and there seems to be more of those than in years past." says Sarah Downing, Texas Cooperative Extension.

City, county spray for mosquitoes

Heavy rains bring influx of pests

By LAURA B. MARTINEZ
The Brownsville Herald

July 27, 2005 — Spraying will begin tonight for the influx of mosquitoes brought on by Hurricane Emily and city officials are urging residents to do their part in helping reduce the mosquito population.

The Public Health Department also is helping its counterparts in Matamoros to rid the city of mosquitoes following the confirmations of 33 cases of dengue fever.

Local health workers were expected to help spray the Matamoros area for mosquitoes Tuesday night, said Josue Ramirez, public health director for the city of Brownsville.

Ramirez was told by Mexican officials that an additional 133 confirmed cases of dengue have been reported in Ciudad Mante.

Dengue fever is an acute viral illness that causes body pain and severe, flu-like symptoms, often accompanied by a bright-red-rash. It is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito.

When the city begins spraying, much of it will be concentrated along the border because of the dengue reports.

Dozens of Chemicals Found in Most Americans' Bodies

The concentration is especially high in children, a national study says.

By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer

In the largest study of chemical exposure ever conducted on human beings, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday that most American children and adults were carrying in their bodies dozens of pesticides and toxic compounds used in consumer products, many of them linked to potential health threats.

The report documented bigger doses in children than in adults of many chemicals, including some pyrethroids, which are in virtually every household pesticide, and phthalates, which are found in nail polish and other beauty products as well as in soft plastics.

The CDC's director, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, called the national exposure report — the third in an assessment that is released biennially — a breakthrough that would help public health officials home in on the most important compounds to which Americans are routinely exposed.

The latest installment, which looked for 148 toxic compounds in the urine and blood of about 2,400 people age 6 and older in 2000 and 2001, is "the largest and most comprehensive report of its kind ever released anywhere by anyone," Gerberding said.

The new data in the 475-page report reveal how "we have fouled our own nest," said Dr. Jerome A. Paulson, an associate professor of pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences who specializes in children's environmental health.

West Nile virus detected in College Station

By CRAIG KAPITAN, Eagle Staff Writer

Two birds recently found in different parts of College Station have been identified as Brazos County's first known victims of West Nile virus this year.

Professor James Olson, director of Texas A&M University's Mosquito Research Lab, described the mosquito presence this year as "strange." With the early summer drought, the area started seeing the Southern House Mosquito as early as May, even though they usually don't show up until about August. That's the species that is most likely to carry West Nile.

"People are probably getting numb to it," Olson said of the disease, which local health officials have warned against for the past several years. "All we can do is tell them that this looks like a virus that has come here to stay, and we're going to have to take our mosquito populations a little more seriously than we did in the past.

"It's a way of life now."

Justices Swat Down Texans' Effort to Weaken Species Protection Law

* The commerce clause of the Constitution can be used to protect rare bugs even though they don't cross state lines, the Supreme Court rules.

HOUSTON — An effort by property rights advocates to attack the legal foundation of the Endangered Species Act was turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, marking the end of a curious but closely watched case involving tiny cave bugs and a plot of undeveloped Texas scrubland.

The court let stand, without comment, a lower court's ruling that the federal government has the authority under the Constitution's commerce clause to protect rare animals even if they do not cross state borders.

Cave bugs, you're still protected

Supreme Court declines to look at Travis interstate commerce case

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to toss out the Endangered Species Act, agreeing that federal officials have the right to protect cave bugs and other threatened animals and plants, despite claims from some Central Texas landowners that regulations are unfair or unconstitutional.

The court denied a request that the panel take up the case, which originated in Travis County.

The marijuana ruling "probably signaled that the court was not likely to reopen another variant on that same question," said Michael Bean, a senior attorney for Environmental Defense. "Every court of appeals that has considered that claim has rejected it."

The case sprung from a fight over land near RM 620 and RM 2222 in Northwest Travis County. A group of partners, including Austin dentist Fred Purcell, bought the original 216 acres in 1983. In 1988, after the investors installed roads and utilities, six species of cave bugs were discovered.

The case has been pending since last year, when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims that restrictions protecting cave bugs were an improper application of the interstate commerce clause.

Bean said potential commerce ensured by the law -- be it researchers studying animals, tourists traveling to see them or scientists developing new products from rare plants -- comes from all endangered species, not just a few. Viewing it otherwise, he said, would force Congress or the courts to determine which of the roughly 1,000 species now on the federal list have value and which do not.

"It always makes sense to us to ask the question more generally: Do endangered species affect interstate commerce?" Bean said. "When asked that way, the answer unmistakably is they do."

Supreme Court stays away from cave bugs

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to the Endangered Species Act involving Central Texas cave bugs, squashing the hopes of property rights advocates but garnering cheers from environmentalists nationwide.

"It's great news," said John Kostyack, National Wildlife Federation senior counsel. "We see this as the final nail in the coffin of the 10-year-long campaign of property rights advocates to have the ESA declared unconstitutional."

Beetle’s Return Shows Promise for Salt Cedar Control

FRITCH – Dr. Jerry Michels, professor of entomology; along with Vanessa Carney, a research associate, and student workers with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station entomology program at Bushland, released about 2,000 salt cedar beetle eggs into a protective cage in April 2004. About 150 larvae survived and the researchers watched them multiply tenfold by June.

"The best thing is they made it through the winter," Michels said, "and we found new beetles this spring. They are in small numbers now, but as the weather turns warmer, they should do pretty good.

"Having the beetle make it through the winter successfully is a big first step," he said. "But we need to see if they increase this year the way they did last year. If they do, then we are really on our way to helping control salt cedar."

May 23, 2005 - AgNews

COLLEGE STATION – A resurgence of the cattle fever tick has left more South Texas land under quarantine than in years past, according to Texas Cooperative Extension.

"It's quite likely what we're seeing here is the discovery of ticks that are rebounding after the drought periods of the late 1990s that caused the Rio Grande to get really, really low," said Dr. Pete Teel of College Station, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station entomologist.

Thanks to high amounts of rainfall and snow, the river is coming back and reservoirs are re-filling, he said. With rising water comes rising cattle fever tick populations.

"The entire state of Texas is at risk, even up in the Panhandle and West Texas," Teel said.

The cattle fever tick, which causes cattle fever -- a disease described as "cattle's malaria" -- is not new to Texas. The insect arrived in the early 1900s, and the state has been in cattle fever tick eradication ever since.

The mortality rate for cattle infected with cattle fever for the first time is higher than 70 percent.

Other tick populations are up too, as more ticks were able to survive the winter.

"The vast majority of ticks that pose a problem in the state of Texas are active in spring and summer months," Teel said.

May 23, 2005 - Texas Parks & Wildlife

Research To Document Agricultural Value of Bats

UVALDE, Texas — This month a team of scientists from Boston University, University of Tennessee, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will return to the Winter Garden agricultural production area near here for the second year of a five-year research project funded by a $2.4 million National Science Foundation grant.

The research seeks to better estimate numbers of Mexican free-tailed bats in Texas and to determine the dollar contribution of bats to protect corn, cotton and other crops against insect infestation. Early indications are that bats are worth millions of dollars in avoided pesticide use, which also benefits the natural environment.

Creepy crawlers
Tarantulas on the move looking for romance

By FERNANDO DEL VALLE
fernandodv@valleystar.com
956-430-6278

HARLINGEN — As the sun sets on the Rio Grande Valley, car headlights splash shadows that crawl like black hands across the road.

When spring blooms in South Texas, it’s mating season for tarantulas.

FOR RELEASE: April 13, 2005

Media contact: Press Relations
Phone: 607-255-6074
E-Mail: pressoffice@cornell.edu

ITHACA, N.Y. -- U.S. President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may not all get a library, airport or highway named after them. But each has a slime-mold beetle named in his honor. Bush thanks entomologist.

Two former Cornell University entomologists who recently had the job of naming 65 new species of slime-mold beetles named three species that are new to science in the genus Agathidium for members of the U.S. administration. They are A. bushi Miller and Wheeler, A. cheneyi Miller and Wheeler and A. rumsfeldi Miller and Wheeler.

OAK LEAF ROLLERS CAN BE CONTROLLED

Contact: Dr. Bart Drees, (979) 845-7026,b-drees@tamu.edu

COLLEGE STATION – "In early spring many species of caterpillars can defoliate oaks and other trees," Dr. Bart Drees, entomologist with Texas Cooperative Extension said. "The caterpillars feed on the early spring growth and occasionally will eat all of the newly-emerged leaves."

One caterpillar that occurs throughout Texas is the oak leaf roller, he said.

Leaf-Cutting Ants on a Rampage in South Texas

WESLACO -- For some reason, leaf-cutting ants in South Texas are much more prevalent this year than most. Homeowners, citrus growers and now even cotton farmers are complaining that the ants are mercilessly stripping their plants of leaves.

Dr. Victor French, an entomologist at the Texas A&M-Kingsville Citrus Center at Weslaco, thinks the increased activity may be drought-related.

Smithsonian researcher speaks to youth about local beetles

By JENNIFER C. SMITH

ALAMO — Two Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History entomologists studying beetles at the refuge taught 11 local youth beetle facts to peak their curiosity about an often overlooked insect.

"Most people don’t realize over half of all species are insects," said Charles Staines, the Smithsonian researcher who led the group with his wife, Suzy. "We’re trying to give them an idea how many insects are out there and what they do."

The couple has collected 120 species of beetles since arriving at the refuge in mid-January.

"That’s only 10 percent of what’s here on the refuge itself," she said.

The several hundred specimens collected will be taken to Washington, D.C., and a portion will be returned to the refuge for display, Charles said.

Suzy Staines said she hopes to increase beetle awareness in the Valley.

"They’ve got butterfly lists, bird lists and dragonfly lists, but no beetle lists," she said.

The worm turns in battle over Mexican liquor

Mezcal producers stop government from banning worm in the bottom of bottles

MEXICO CITY -- The world nearly lost a peculiar piece of Mexico's cultural tradition when the government, without regard to drinkers everywhere, targeted the lowly worm at the bottom of the mezcal bottle for extinction.

It seems the worm was almost a victim of Mexico's labyrinthine bureaucracy, which sought to remove it in a set of new laws governing the production of mezcal -- a liquor similar to tequila -- that are set to go into effect Thursday.

The effort to remove the worm came amid concerns of the worm's high fat content.

If you make it to the bottom of a bottle of mezcal, a fatty worm is the least of your problems. But officials say they were worried that fat globules could alter the chemical composition of mezcal, made from the blue agave cactus.

After learning of the anti-worm legislation, mezcal producers swung into high gear, lobbying the government and producing studies that show the worm poses no health risks. The government reversed course last month, saving not just the worm, but in all likelihood the mezcal industry.

"It would have been devastating," said New York-born Douglas French, who exports Oaxacan mezcal, with a scorpion instead of a worm, to the United States. "It's an old beverage for Mexico, but it's new for the world, and its trademark is the worm."

Ernst Mayr, giant among evolutionary biologists, dies at 100

Acclaimed advancer of Darwinism had been member of Harvard faculty since 1953
By Steve Bradt
FAS Communications - February 4, 2005

Ernst Mayr, the Harvard University evolutionary biologist who has been called "the Darwin of the 20th century," died yesterday morning (Feb. 3) at a retirement community in Bedford, Mass. A member of the Harvard faculty for more than half a century, he was 100.