The emerald ash borer was found in four white fringetrees in Dayton, Ohio, this month. The discovery is unwelcome, considering the insect has already destroyed millions of ash trees in the United States.
"That's the disturbing part," Andrea Diss-Torrance, invasive forest insect coordinator with the Department of Natural Resources, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "This may be an indication of bad news to come."
Is this the emerald ash borer adapting?
"This is a scary thought," Tom Tiddens, supervisor of plant healthcare at the Chicago Botanic Garden and emerald ash borer blogger, told the JS. "What will happen when ash tree populations dwindle? Will the EAB population die back, or just move to a secondary host (the meatloaf, as the prime rib is gone) and/or develop a completely new palate?"
For now, researchers with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will re-examine research to detect if other members of the olive family—to which the ash and fringetree belong—can harbor the insect.
The insect was first found in Michigan in 2002. It is thought to have hitchhiked from China.
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