United States Customs agents at Miami International Airport were surprised to find an Ataris Pallidipennis Stal in a shipment of flowers coming in from South Africa. The insects pose a great risk to the delicately balanced ecosystems of the United States and their release could have a domino effect of consequences.
Waldmar Klassen, an expert in entomology at the University of Florida Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead says that it is a possibility that the bug, that usually eats grass, will wind up eating the saw grass in the everglades but that “It would be premature to say anything about this in terms of a threat”. How Florida decides to deal with this threat will have great consequences in terms of public relations. Obviously they need to think about the safety of their ecosystem, but making too much of a scene over the discovery of a bug (that is potentially harmless) could just make them look crazy.
Ataris Pallidipennis Stal,Hemiptera:Americans remain deeply concerned over troubling issues our country faces. As evidenced by the Google Hot Trends for this morning, here are the top ten issues searched for on Google. Coming in at number 62 and number 100 of the top 100 were inquiries related to the California Station Fire, the only search words pertaining to any real serious issues going on in our country.