California is known for its palm trees . Though it only has one native palm coinage — the remainder are spell — the cautiously trimmed trees are an instant visual that reads " Shangri-la . " lamentably , some palms are now being eaten by weevils .
The South American palm weevil is a large lumpy mallet with a mission : tunnel into palm tree tree and lay eggs . They favor the Canary Island date palm , sometimes called the " pineapple plant palm " referring to its distinctive form after pruning .
Female decoration weevil drill into the apical meristem ( " heart of palm " to epicurean ) to set eggs . The newly hatch weevils start life story in a bountiful surroundings , surrounded by food and water . They eat the trees ' heart out , exit a mushy ruin in their wake . Then the larvae proceed with their lifecycle , maturing inside cocoon they make from leftover palm fibers . When they hatch and fly on , the cycles/second repeats .
This irksome relief valve can vote out the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , as the apical meristem is where the tree spud new leaves . In many cases the weevils leave the tree diagram in a country of austere accidental injury , with a characteristic wilt to its subsist leaves .
Finding these weevil is n’t well-situated — once they ’ve burrow in , they ’re fundamentally insensible until the price is done . The current best drill for preventing their bedspread is to treat palm Tree with anti - weevil pesticide . As the weevils begin to infest San Diego , scientists are go after their spread .
Inthe video recording below , Deep Lookgets up close with these palm weevils and the scientists analyse them . This was fritter away in 4 K Ultra HD , so you’re able to see the creepy minuscule hemipterous insect in all theirH. R. Giger - styleglory .
If video is n’t your matter — or you just require more discussion of the science — register this KQED Science blog post .
