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New pest discovered in Texas
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-19 15:07

HOUSTON -- An agriculture specialist recently discovered in the US state of Texas a weevil that the science world has yet to describe, the US media reported Thursday.

The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialist working in Freeport, Texas, discovered two weCBPevils during a routine cargo examination of a 50,000-kg shipment of Guatemalan pineapples, according to the ABC TV channel.

Since specialists were not able to identify the pests, they sent the specimens to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for identification, and the USDA results indicated the pests are a new species.

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"On rare occasions while our officers and agriculture specialists are doing their jobs they make history. CBP is very proud of our agriculture specialists and their accomplishments," said Jeffrey O. Baldwin, director of Houston Field Operations.

In a statement to CBP, the Smithsonian Institute's Entomology Lab in Washington D.C. wrote that the species was similar to the weevil genera Conotrachelus and belonging to a tropical genus that is currently not described in the traditional sense.

CBP has ordered the shipment of pineapples be treated, destroyed or re-exported to prevent the introduction of this agricultural pest, the report said.