U.S. Customs
Find New Pest In Guatemala Pineapple
Shipment
Freeport, TX (AHN) - The U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) and Agriculture
Department (DA) found a new species of pest
in a shipment of pineapples from Guatemala.
A CBP agriculture specialist inspecting the
50,000-ton imported fruit cargo in Freeport,
Texas found a weevil she could not identify
in the pineapples and later learned from the
DA, where a specimen of the pest was sent
for examination, that it was a new weevil
species.
The species was similar to the weevil genera
Conotrachelus belonging to a tropical genus
that is currently not described in the
traditional sense, the Smithsonian
Institute's Entomology Lab in Washington
D.C. said in a statement.
The CBP did not allow the fruits, and the
new weevils in it, to enter the U.S. to
prevent the local spread of the pest. It
recommended instead to treat, destroy or
re-export the pineapples.
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