Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Little orange devils :)

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "road's end farm" <organic101@linkny.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Little orange devils :)
  • Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 20:54:56 -0400


On Thursday, October 9, 2003, at 07:35 PM, mIEKAL aND wrote:


Another deliberate Government introduction that went bad. I wonder how they test these things. I thought we had learned a lesson about this with introduced plants, fish, and mollusks. I guess not, sad really.

TFB


I never heard this story, is there more to it, or is this conspiracy theory?


I have also heard that they were deliberately introduced, (to control the potato beetle); but don't remember where I heard it, so I don't know if the information is correct.

It sounds in any case as if they have gotten really out of hand. They might come back into balance with time -- though we have also had first frost followed by warm weather, the only thing really swarming here right now is cluster flies. -- I just checked the web site Lou sent, and I'm not at all sure this is the same one. Nothing on the page of color variants looks like the potato beetle eater, though one illustration on the "facts" page (the adult walking away from the eggs) does look something like it. The one I am thinking of is oval and pinkish in color, not orange; with numerous black spots, I don't know the exact number.

This website also seems confused about the deliberate introduction -- one page says they were introduced in the 1980's, the other page says in the early 1900's. There might have been multiple introductions, of course.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page