Two new pests—the brown marmorated stinkbug and spotted wing drosophila—have snuck into the United Kingdom but are not yet established there.
Two adult brown marmorated stinkbugs were intercepted at a U.K. airport in 2010 in passenger luggage on a flight from the United States, according to a report in the January edition of the British fruit trade magazine The Fruit Grower. The stinkbug was found in Switzerland as early as 2007.
Chris Malumphy, senior entomologist at the U.K.’s Food and Environmental Research Agency, says in the article that although the stinkbug could become established there, it would probably be much less of a threat in the U.K.’s cool climate than in the warmer areas of southern Europe. In the United Kingdom, the bug might have just one generation a year, compared with five or six in the warmer areas of Asia, where it originated.
The spotted wing drosophila has also made it to the United Kingdom, arriving last August in blueberries exported from Canada, the report states. The fly has not yet been found growing on crops in the United Kingdom, but entomologists there think it’s only a matter of time and feel it’s important to have controls in place before it becomes established.
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