A native of Mexico - a Colorado beetle ... How did he conquer Europe?

They say that if an English pin had not crossed the Channel, nobody would have known about it. This is also true of the Colorado beetle, which conquered America, Germany, France, Poland, and in 1949 entered the territory of the USSR. Since then, he remains one of the main characters in all the agricultural expanses of Russia. Planting a tomato, eggplant and potatoes is his diocese. By itself, the Colorado beetle is small, it is very large simpatyaga. So small, yellow, with ten strips on the arched back. The bug has wings, but it does not fly so often. If the weather is good, warm and slightly windy, then it dissolves the wings and flies to explore new territories at a speed of up to eight kilometers per hour.

It feeds on the Colorado beetle exclusively with poisonous corned beef, which are found in the leaves of the nightshade plants, so he loves the potato tops very much. She is very poisonous, and her leaves are so tender! Rather, it feeds not so much the beetle as its voracious offspring. The concentration of toxic substances in it is very high, so no bird does not eat it.

All over the world it is believed that this beetle is Colorado, but to the American state of Colorado it has an indirect relationship. By origin, the solanaceous leaf beetle is native to northeastern Mexico. There, in the province of Sonor, there were huge plantings of nightshade plants, on which lived before and now lives a family of solanaceous beetles, divided into fifty species. One species migrated through two American deserts and found itself first in settlements of migrants who master the lands of Nebraska. The inhabitants of this land grew a lot of potatoes, they fought as best they could with orange pests, but they did not attach much publicity to this phenomenon.

Five years later, he was discovered by settlers on the slopes of the Colorado mountains. Their huge potato plantations were eaten by orange larvae. It happened in 1859. Colorado farmers did not keep silent, they announced a terrible beetle to the whole world, so he became famous as Colorado, although no one really knew where he came from, what his name was and how to fight it.

Five years later, from the gluttonous insect eating the potato tops, Pennsylvania was already groaning, then the Colorado beetle conquered potato plantations along the entire Atlantic coast. In the late nineteenth century, it was discovered by farmers in Germany. German authorities banned the import of potatoes from America, since only from there could appear in their fields Colorado beetle. The struggle with him began with the mobilization of army units.

The military dug in the infected fields with broad moats, poured oil on the affected areas and set them on fire. The potato fields burned with fire. The chemical industry offered the latest pesticides. The earth was etched and burned again. As a result, the next year, not a single bug sat on the potatoes planted on the experimental plot. It did not appear on it after a year. But when in the third year the fields were again planted with potatoes, the Colorado beetle appeared and calmly began to eat it. It turned out that he has six forms of rest and can withstand a diapause for several years. By the beginning of the Second World War, the Colorado beetle conquered almost the whole of France, and during the war - Poland.