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Threat to food, eco systems

MEXICO CITY: Experts say a moth whose larvae threaten to decimate Mexico's emblematic flat-leafed cactus has invaded the country's mainland for the first time, something authorities have feared for decades.

Lab reports indicated that at least one moth trapped in the resort city of Cancun since January is a South American ``nopal moth,'' a species non-native to Mexico detected last year off the coast on Isla Mujeres, said an official of plant safety.

But he said because it was smaller than textbook descriptions, the specimen and five others that could be nopal moths have been sent to a U.S. lab for identification.

A U.S. entomologist said ``it looks like it probably is'' the cactus-eating species based on photos.

Mexico said the moths probably flew across the narrow strait that separates the island from Mexico's Caribbean coast or caught a ride on a ferry.

Known as Cactoblastis Cactorum and native to Argentina, the moth was exported to Australia, South Africa and islands throughout the Caribbean starting in the 1920s to eradicate cacti that occupied valuable farm land.

But in countries like Mexico — where flat-leafed Opuntia cactuses known as ``nopales'' are a food source, an important part of the ecosystem and a national emblem — the moth poses a major threat.

Scientists say the moths were probably carried onto Isla Mujeres by visitors or blown there by a hurricane from nearby Caribbean islands, where they have been sighted since the 1950s.

The moths — whose larvae eat away the cacti's insides — also appeared in the United States in 1989.

They advanced into Florida, but scientists have managed to halt the moths' expansion near Mobile, Alabama.

As in the United States, where experts are battling the moth by releasing sterile males and removing infected plants, Mexico could be facing a decades-long fight to keep the moth away from the vast plains of cactus in central Mexico and the U.S. Southwest.

AP

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