Alien Invasive Insects – What Are Alien Invasive Insects?
Some organisms, including insects, are referred to as alien invasive species or exotic invasive species. Put simply, these organisms were introduced, intentionally or accidentally, into an ecosystem outside their own and managed to thrive. Alien invasive species can tip the balance in an ecosystem, sometimes with serious environmental and economic consequences. How Alien Insect Species Are Introduced: Accidental escapes – Sometimes an entomologist or naturalist makes his mark on history by letting one of his collected specimens escape. Etienne Leopold Trouvelot, a Frenchman living in Massachusetts in the 1800’s, unleashed a Lepidopteran beast in his own backyard. An amateur naturalist fascinated with silkworms, he brought some gypsy moth egg masses back from his native country. Some larvae escaped, and by the 1880’s the caterpillars were defoliating his neighborhood. Today, over a century later, they feed on forests throughout the easter
