covering an area of over 6 million sq miles

(16 million sq km). It prefers continental steppe

climates with cold winters and hot summers,

avoiding the warm, damp climate of Britain and

Ireland. There was an unsuccessful plan by

Germany during the Second World War to

introduce Colorado Potato Beetle to England,

to destabilize enemy food production. Similarly,

when it arrived in East Germany during the

1950s, propagandists tried to blame the new pest,

groundlessly, on American interference, calling it

“Amikafer” (Yankee beetle).

The Cotton Boll Weevil Anthonomus grandis

(Curculionidae) is a serious cotton pest in southern

USA, recently doing up to $300 million worth of

damage per year. Strangely, there is a monument

to this pest in the town of Enterprise, Alabama,

because its depredations forced the area to

diversify into other crops, bringing prosperity.

left | Anthonomus grandis (Curculionidae)

The Cotton Boll Weevil on a cotton boll

that will become only a husk filled with

weevil droppings.

below | Agriotes (Elateridae) Adults and

larvae in Canada on potatoes damaged

by the holes of the wireworm larvae.