Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Japanese Beetle in Ontario

A Japanese beetle sighted in Komoka Provincial Park near London, Ontario.
The following is from Wikipedia:

"As the name suggests, the Japanese beetle is native to Japan. The insect was first found in the United States in 1916 in a nursery near Riverton, New Jersey. It is thought that beetle larvae entered the United States in a shipment of iris bulbs prior to 1912 when inspections of commodities entering the country began. "The first Japanese beetle found in Canada was in a tourist's car at Yarmouth, arriving in Nova Scotia by by ferry from Maine in 1939. During the same year three additional adults were captured at Yarmouth and three at Lacolle in southern Quebec."

The brightly copper toned beetle is not very destructive in Japan, where it is controlled by natural enemies, but in North America it is a serious pest of about 200 species of plants, including rose bushes, grapes, hops, and other plants. They cause damage to plants by skeletonizing the foliage, that is, consuming only the leaf material between the veins.

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