Photo by T.H. Atkinson, University of Texas at Austin.
Researchers here in the Hulcr Lab have recently been able to confirm the identity of a platypodid beetle, found in an unexpected place, colonizing an unexpected host.
Sangamesh Hiremath of TK posted photos on Frass and Noodles (our lab’s Facebook Group for bark and ambrosia beetle researchers) of beetles found attacking live rubber trees in Kerala, India. Dr. Andrew Johnson and Dr. You Li were both able to confirm that the species is Euplatypus parallelus, which has not previously been observed in India.
Parallelus does not typically attack live trees and is not host-specific, according to Dr. Johnson.
“It’s just a generous ambrosia beetle, so [it may feed on] really anything,” Johnson says. “It seems to attack live rubber trees sometimes but normally dead trees.”
The beetles appeared following weather that likely stressed the rubber trees badly. Between June and August of 2018, Kerala received heavy rains “leading to one of the worst flood situations after a century,” Hiremath wrote on Facebook. “Heavy rainfall coupled with low sunshine hours and depletion of nutrients from soil (laterite soil) leading to acidity might have caused a severe stress in the rubber trees, thus creating a congenial breeding ground” for parallelus.
Native to South America and possibly Florida, parallelus is an invader in the Indian subcontinent. In 2003 it was described on stressed, wilting trees in Bangladesh.