A Scourge of Alien Insects

By Jamie Murphy

Inside Building 80, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's shabby concrete-and- tin inspection station on the outskirts of New York's John F. Kennedy + International Airport, a crate of bonsai trees en route from the Republic of China to Memphis has been pried open. In a nearby room rests a long cardboard box containing cut flowers from the Netherlands. Thousands of similar parcels pass through J.F.K. daily. On some holidays -- Mother's Day, for example -- one chartered plane may discharge 15,000 cartons of blooms and foliage. But the shipments sometimes hold more than flowers. They can be the hideaway for exotic insects.

Such pests are invading the U.S. in increasing numbers, with sometimes dire effects on agriculture, forests, public health and even people's homes. The Mediterranean fruit fly, which threatened California citrus crops in 1980-82, is thought to have arrived in a tourist's peach. Africanized "killer" bees, sighted for the first time on U.S. soil last year near Bakersfield, Calif., probably hitchhiked there from Latin America aboard a ship laden with oil- drilling equipment. Asian tiger mosquitoes, carriers of dengue, a viral infection that causes chills, headache and muscle pains, were intercepted near Houston last year. They have since migrated to at least six Southeastern states.

Among other recent arrivals is the Asian cockroach, which, unlike the too familiar German variety, flies and -- most ominously -- lives happily both indoors and out. Phillip Koehler, an entomologist at the University of Florida, received a phone call last fall from a pest-control company in Lakeland, Fla., a city 36 miles east of Tampa. "They thought they had a heavy infestation of German cockroaches," he recalls. The difference between the two species became clear when the bugs, attracted by light, began flocking toward people's homes. "In the evening, when they are most active," says Koehler, "they literally cover the sides of houses, entering homes through any crack they can find." While the flying roaches are easy to kill with pesticides, their mobility has kept exterminators scrambling.

Meanwhile, houses on Florida's eastern coast are beset by another insect immigrant. The Formosan termite, thought to have arrived there aboard a seagoing yacht, forms colonies underground. Its subterranean paths sometimes extend as far as 300 ft. Says Entomologist Nan-Yao Su of the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center: "In one instance, in Hallandale, Fla., a single colony had driven foraging tunnels underneath four large condominium buildings and infested each one." The insects chew up virtually anything in their path. Last year downtown Honolulu lost power for half a day after Formosan termites severed a 1-in.-thick electrical cable.

A third threat is a strain of fire ant called Solenopsis invicta that was discovered this year in northern Alabama, northern Mississippi and Oklahoma. Until now the insects, which first entered the U.S. five decades ago, had been confined to a warm-weather belt between Lubbock, Texas and Beaufort, N.C. Invicta has managed to make a different but equally menacing adaptation. The species has begun nesting in supercolonies, insect megalopolises that contain 10 million to 20 million ants. Says Clifford Lofgren of the USDA'S Agricultural Research Service: "Larger colonies eat crops such as soybeans, potatoes and other vegetables. They have been known to kill young birds and small rodents. Fire ants will start to feed on anything or anybody that collapses from multiple stings."

It is not for lack of vigilance that these formidable bugs have slipped across the border. The USDA employs 1,000 inspectors at 85 ports of entry nationwide. At J.F.K. ten officials examine as many as 2,000 crates of flowers, vegetables, seeds and cuttings every day and pass any pests they find to an insect identifier, a botanist and a plant pathologist for cataloging. An additional 60 inspectors are assigned to the airport's five international- arrivals areas, where they watch for illegal agricultural material in the bags of passengers filing through Customs. But increased travel and shipping have strained these resources. In the past decade the number of passengers entering the country has grown dramatically, and imports of nursery stock, cut flowers and foliage, particularly for offices, have boomed. "The growth (in the cut- flower industry) has brought new pest potential," says J.F.K.'s insect identifier Doug Odermatt. "Every new variety has its own insects." In fiscal year 1985, Customs inspectors nationwide recorded some 30,000 "insect interceptions" -- evidence of one or more pests in a shipment -- nearly double the rate of ten years ago.

As the exotic bugs gain more of a foothold, USDA researchers have begun exploring new technologies. An X-ray machine that can find soft, fleshy objects like produce is now being evaluated at Miami International Airport. A stethoscope-like device that can pick up the munching sounds of insects as they feed inside fruits and grains is being tested at a USDA laboratory in ) Gainesville, Fla. Not all methods are mechanical. In New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, beagles have been trained to detect contraband flora. Jackpot, J.F.K.'s first beagle, has sniffed out oranges, papayas and two 10- lb. mangoes -- as well as salami, ham, cheese, live birds and a can of lime- scented shaving cream.

With reporting by Andrea Dorfman/New York and Frank S. Washington/Atlanta