An unwelcome kiss

Adult kissing bugs are 1/2 to 1 inch-long, dark in color with
reddish to yellow bands on the edges of the abdomen, and
a cone-shaped head.  They are common throughout Texas
(and many other states), especially in southern parts of the state.
Their natural hosts include wild rodents.

One of the potentially more serious, yet poorly recognized, indoor biting insects in Texas is the cone-nosed bug, or kissing bug, Triatoma species.

Kissing bugs are so-called because of their habit of biting people (and other animals) at night, often around the face or lips.  The bite can be extremely itchy.  The worst part, however, is that there is a relatively small risk (in the U.S.) that these bugs could transmit a parasite-caused disease called Chagas.

I have blogged previously about kissing bugs and Chagas disease, and have advised that there really was no place to report these bugs to, or any place to have them sent for testing.  That's changed recently, however, thanks to a Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) website and new DNA diagnostic tests for the pathogen.

The new website and testing service is available online. The site allows any Texas resident to send Triatome (kissing) bugs in for identification and analysis for the Chagas parasite at no charge.  Preference in testing will be given to bugs that have been documented as feeding on people.  There are limited resources for testing bugs collected as a curiosity, so those submissions may not be tested for months, or ever.

There is a downside to this new service, though.  Just because a Triatome bug collected from a home turns out to be carrying the Trypanosome (Chagas) parasite does not mean that people in the infested home are at high risk of the disease.  The low rate of Chagas disease in Texas suggests that the kissing bugs in Texas are not very good at transmitting the disease--at least to people (dogs are another story).  That's good news. The bad news is that it may be difficult to convince your customers that having inch-long, disease-infested, blood sucking bugs in their home is nothing to worry about.

In any case, should you catch one or more of these insects in a customer's home, it's good to know that there is some place you can turn for more information.  Thanks to Wizzie Brown for alerting us to the availability of this new resource.

Crazy ant name gets crazy

A closeup of Nylanderia pubens and the male
genitalia (bottom) of N. fulva (left) and pubens.
Based on the recent paper, invasive crazy
ants found in the southern U.S. in recent years are
thought to be N. pubens, with the proposed
common name, tawny crazy ant. Photo from Gotzek
et al. 2012.

One of the most impressive new structural insect pests to emerge in the southern U.S. over the past few years (besides the bed bug) is a new ant, called variously, the Rasberry crazy ant, the Caribbean crazy ant, and the hairy crazy ant.  According to Texas A&M University graduate student Danny McDonald, this ant finally has a definitive name... well at least a definitive scientific name.  

Dietrich Gotzek and colleagues from the Smithsonian Institute and Towson University in Maryland (2012, PLoS ONE 7(9): e45314), examined ants from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, and concluded that the ant we know in Texas as the Rasberry crazy ant is not a new species, but a previously described ant from South America, Nylanderia fulva.  Their conclusion is based on statistical analysis of numerous body part characters (morphometric analysis), DNA comparisons, and comparison of the shape and condition of the male ant's genitals. The researchers report that there is no reliable way to distinguish N. fulva workers from the worker ants of the closely related, so called "Caribbean crazy ant", N. pubens.  The Caribbean crazy ant is the species that at one time was thought to be, or be the closest thing to, the Rasberry crazy ant in Texas.  I'm no expert on the techniques used in these studies, but based on the agreement between three independent methods of settling the question, and Danny McDonald's seal of approval, the matter appears to me to be definitively settled.  

So what is Nylanderia fulva, and what do we know about it?  This ant, which has never been given an English common name, is from South America--probably from the southern part of the continent according to the study's authors.  It was first described from Brazil, but major population explosions of this ant are thought to have occurred in Columbia, S.A. as well as Bermuda, the St. Croix Islands, and possibly southern Florida. One of the characteristics of this ant that distinguish it from its Caribbean cousin, N. pubens, is its ability to develop high populations and become a serious pest.

The Controversy

If entomologists have settled happily on a scientific name for this ant, it's hard to find anyone who is happy about the common name for this ant. So what exactly is a common name and why is it so controversial? Most insect common names have probably come from the general, non-science public. The problem with common names is that frequently people from different social circles, or language groups, or regions have given different common names for the same insect. Also, the same common name may refer to different organisms.  Of course this drives the obsessive-compulsive scientific community absolutely batty. 

Since 1903 professional entomologists have attempted to bring some order to common names of insects via rules and an approval committee and a formal list of acceptable common names.  The Entomological Society of America (ESA) currently maintains a list of approved common names.  This makes entomologists happy, but can rub some people the wrong way, especially those who get attached to a favored common name or spelling (e.g., the media who want to write "bedbug" instead of bed bug).  

Such is the case, for some, with Nylanderia fulva. The authors of the paper have recommended that the ant should be called the tawny crazy ant, because of its light brown color. But this so-called common name is anything but in common use. At least three common names have been applied to this ant since recent reports of it in the U.S.  In Florida it has been referred to as the Caribbean crazy ant (a mis-identification, now cleared up by Gotzek's paper).  In Louisiana it has been referred to as the hairy crazy ant.  And of course the pest control industry in Texas has known it for the past 10 years as the Rasberry crazy ant, in honor of Tom Rasberry, the sharp-eyed PMP who first brought it to the attention of Texas A&M researchers and many others.  

Friends of Rasberry argue that the name Rasberry crazy ant should be the official name because it has been in general use the longest and it honors the person that pointed it out (at least in Texas) to professional entomologists.  Others don't especially like the common name because it's confusing to people who don't know Rasberry's story, or who think its an ant pest found on berry crops. Others don't accept the Rasberry name because it arose locally, and has no meaning to folks in other areas who have known about the ant for many years in say, Florida or Mississippi or Bermuda. 

I'm mostly happy to stay out of the controversy and wait until the dust settles; but I will likely use whatever name the ESA settles on. Scientists, after all, have been the originators of many of the common names in use today.  At the same time I sympathize with those who object to entomologists (who generally dislike common names in the first place) choosing a fusty, and rather nondescript name. This may be one of the reasons the botanist de Candolle, writing in 1868, said, 

"Every friend of science ought to be opposed to the introduction into a modern language of names of plants that are not already there, unless they are derived from a Latin botanical name that has undergone but a slight alteration."

Some Useful Links

To learn more about why Nylanderia fulva is such a pest, see the Texas A&M University website on this insect.  Also, Alex Wild has created a useful and beautiful set of directions on how to identify N. fulva. The photos from this site will give you a better appreciation of the fine distinctions and types of characters used to distinguish ants at the species level.

 

New scholarship for urban entomology students

Clayton Wright poses with fellow Purdue University
entomology graduates at the B&G Chemical and Equipment
Co. 50th Anniversary Winter Workshop in Arlington, TX in
January 2000.  Clockwise from lower left, Clayton Wright,
(me) Mike Merchant, Mike Miesch, Professor John Osmun,
and David Fincannon.

One of the founding fathers of the modern pest control industry in Texas was Clayton "Bud" Wright. Wright was the founder of the B&G Chemical and Equipment Co., pest control supply distributor based in Dallas (now part of Target Specialty Products in Texas and Oklahoma).  His contributions to pest control and the business of pesticide formulation and distribution are legendary in Texas. One of the first class of Purdue University graduates in urban entomology in 1950, Wright was one of the earliest distributors of the famed B&G sprayer, an invention of his Purdue classmates and close friends, Bill Brehm and George Gilmore.

Bringing his science background to Texas, Wright began formulating his own pesticides.  Local companies began purchasing his special B&G rodenticide, mixed in his home bathtub before he and his wife Anita could afford to purchase their first electric cement mixer.

Wright was fully committed to helping his fellow pest control operators become better educated about the science and technology of pest control. Wright's company began doing product and equipment testing, and eventually training workshops to show pest control operators how to use the new tools of pest control more effectively. Long before the state of Texas required PMPs to get annual continuing education units, B&G Chemicals and Equipment offered quality educational opportunities for its customers. In addition to mentoring pest control practitioners, Wright also taught university-based entomologists a thing or two.  My first boss, Dr. Phil Hamman, relished his memories of Wright taking him around the state to meet influential PMPs during his early years as an extension entomologist.  I always found Clayton Wright to be generous with his time and a warm supporter of me as a rookie urban entomologist.

Just before his death in 2000, Clayton was inducted into the PMP Hall of Fame, where you can read more about his early years and how he and his family grew their business.

One of my fellow Purdue graduates, David Fincannon, owner of A-All Pest Control in Dallas, says that his company (est. 1963) has benefited greatly over the years from the forward thinking of Bud Wright and the training programs his company offered.  Consequently, he has committed himself to establishing a scholarship fund in the name of Clayton Wright, through the pest control fraternity, Pi Chi Omega.  Pi Chi Omega has offered scholarships to young urban entomology students since 1976 and Fincannon says that the goal for a permanently funded scholarship is $20,000.  According to Fincannon, about 10% of all Pi Chi Omega scholarships offered since 1976 have been awarded to Texas A&M students.

If you agree with the premise that education is the tide that lifts all of us in the pest control field, then consider supporting David in his fund-raising campaign. Checks should be made payable to the Pi Chi Omega (include ESF, Endowed Scholarship Fund, on the memo line) and your letter should indicate that you are donating in the name of Clayton "Bud" Wright. Pi Chi Omega is a 501c(7) non-profit organization.  Checks should be mailed to Mr. Vern E. Toblan, Pi Chi Omega, Endowed Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 8149, Wilmington, DE  19803.  Thanks to David for getting this worthy effort off the ground.

TDA lowers licensing fees

When was the last time you heard of a government agency lowering license fees? Yet that's exactly what the Texas Department of Agriculture is doing this month.  According to David Kostroun, Chief Administrator for the Agriculture and Consumer Protection section of TDA, not only are some fees being reduced, refund checks are in the mail. Checks will cover the difference between the old and new fees you may have paid between September 2011 and September 2012.

According to Kostroun, recent cost cutting initiatives by the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) have made it possible for Commissioner Staples to implement a 20% Structural Pest Control fee reduction.  And this from an agency that took a 45% cut in funding during the past legislative session! Keep in mind, these reductions are for structural pest control licenses, and not the traditional TDA (outdoor) licenses.

The new fees are as follows:

• $224 for an original business license (formerly $280)
• $224 for renewal of a business license (formerly $280)
• $108 for an original certified applicators license (formerly $135)
• $100 for renewal of a certified applicators license (formerly $125)
• $81 for an original technician license (formerly $100)
• $76 for an renewal of a technician license (formerly $95)
• $48 for anyone wishing to get approval for a continuing education course (formerly $60)

Fees that have not changed include:

• $30 for duplicate business license, certified applicator license or technician license when the original has been lost or destroyed
• $30 for reissuing a business license, certified applicators license or technician license due to a name change in the license
• $75 for administering exams in each category
• Renewal fee for applications received 90 days or less after expiration date equal to 1-1/2 times the normally required renewal fee
• Renewal fee for applications received greater than 90 days but less than one year days after expiration date equal to 2 times the normally required renewal fee (No change.)

So, if after this good news you're feeling a little lucky, think about taking that refund check and buy a lottery ticket. Despite the apparent generosity of the refunds, I'm sure the State of Texas would be mighty happy to get your money back. 

Summer flu often spells West Nile Virus

Dr. Robert Haley, Chief Epidemiologist of the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, recently wrote a short and easily readable summary of the West Nile virus situation for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).  Click here to read a free copy of the article.

Based on his medical observations over several years, Dr. Haley concludes that "diagnosis of WNF should be suspected in anyone with unexplained fever from late June through September, the season when other causes of fever are least common. Fever with disorientation, stiff neck, or neurologic deficits suggests WNND."

It's estimated that since its discovery in the U.S. in 1999, over 30,000 Americans have contracted either West Nile fever (WNF) or the most serious form of the disease, West Nile neuroinvasive disease (WNND). While even I may have been tempted a few years ago to dismiss this as an "old person's disease" (older persons with underlying health problems are most likely to die from the virus), at over 50 myself I now fall into the susceptible age group. And I don't feel that old.

It would be a mistake to underestimate this disease. It can even develop in younger people, as a 14 year-old Dallas girl discovered this summer, although this is not common.  Even the milder form of the disease can be debilitating for extended periods of time, with an average recovery time of 60 days in one study.

For PMPs working in residential environments, especially, it's important to take WNV seriously. Higher concentrations of DEET, picaridin and IR-3535 remain the best repellents for outdoor workers due to their longer residual and highly effective repellency for WNV mosquitoes.  For more information and assistance in choosing the right insect repellent for you and your employees, check out the highly useful repellent calculator developed by the National Pesticide Information Center.

What can schools do about mosquito control?

In case you haven't heard, mosquitoes have been big news in Texas lately. This summer has turned into the worst summer on record for West Nile virus (WNV) in Texas, and both Dallas and Houston have resorted to aerial attacks to attempt to stem the tide of the mosquito and the virus.

Now with a new school year starting up, many school districts are asking themselves, "What should we be doing?" Parents will be concerned about their children waiting at bus stops and participating in band and athletics practice.  And let's not forget about Friday Night Lights, and weekly football games.  What responsibility do schools have to take part in community wide mosquito control?  And if you work for a school district, what will you tell parents when they ask what the district is doing to keep their kids safe from West Nile virus?

Source Reduction
Perhaps the most important single thing a school district can do is make sure that school grounds are not contributing to local mosquito problems. It's especially important to check water catchment basins, storm drains, low areas, and equipment storage yards, athletic and playground equipment for places where water might be caught and held. If you do pest control in a school district, expand your vision at this time of year to look for and report potential mosquito breeding sites.

If a suspected breeding site is found, report it to your local health department, or if possible, drain the water or treat with it. Effective mosquito treatments include Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) dunks or methoprene (Altosid®) granules or briquets.  Both of these are Green category insecticides.

Treating Mosquito Resting Sites 
Mosquitoes are primarily active in the evening and morning.  During the day, adult mosquitoes typically rest in vegetation or other shaded sites. We can use this information to reduce mosquito numbers. Treatment of mosquito resting sites can dramatically reduce bites and biting rates in the immediate area of treatment.

If you know of areas of vegetation, or shaded doorways where mosquitoes are a problem, consider treating such sites with a residual pyrethroid spray. Pyrethroid insecticides like deltamethrin, cyfluthrin, bifenthrin, and lambda-cyhalothrin (Yellow category) can provide up to six weeks control on vegetation or building surfaces. These products can be applied via hand-held pump sprayer, backpack mist blower, or power sprayer to doorways and trees, shrubs and ornamental grass around buildings and entryways.

Such sprays are probably not necessary on most campuses, but in sites with heavy shade and vegetation, and populations of biting mosquitoes, such treatments may be warranted.  If you choose to treat sites like this, remember to post the school 48 hours in advance, and keep students and staff out of treated areas until sprays have thoroughly dried.

Low Volume Treatments

One of the five planes used to apply mosquito
sprays over Dallas County this month. (Photo
courtesy of Dallas Morning News and Tom
Fox/Staff Photographer)

When most people think about mosquito control they think about trucks or aircraft applying a fog or mist. The treatments used by such government agencies are called ultra-low volume (ULV) sprays.  The very tiny particle sizes used in such applications allow better penetration into dense foliage, and generally mean quick dispersal and short life of spray residues.

Most school districts will not engage in ULV sprays, though some cities or mosquito districts may offer the district an option to be included in community-wide spray actions. If ULV insecticides are to be used for campuses or sporting venues, remember to follow posting and notification requirements. Yellow category justifications must generally be filed, because most ULV treatments use Yellow category products like resmethrin or permethrin.  Synergized pyrethrin applications may be considered Green, unless the synergizing additive in the spray concentrate (generally piperonil butoxide) is greater than 5% .

The effect on mosquitoes from ULV-applied sprays is generally short-lived (few hours to a day), so they should be used only on special occasions, such as an hour or more before a sporting event. Wind and weather also have an important influence on the effectiveness of ULV sprays, so be sure to measure and record wind speed prior to application and follow label restrictions carefully.

If your campus has been sprayed as part of a community-wide aerial spray campaign, no special precautions should be necessary.  However some districts have been making a point to let parents know that school play equipment has been washed after spraying.

Education and Awareness
Ironically for schools, one of the most overlooked components of an IPM program is education. Mosquito season provides an excellent opportunity to get mosquito control information out to the community, as well as raise awareness of your district's IPM program.

One of the most important messages that a school can send is the importance of wearing insect repellent when working or playing outdoors. Consider notifying parents and students advising them to wear a good repellent to school, or at evening sporting events.

Many districts have had questions about whether they can allow students to use repellents on school grounds. Personal use of repellents is not prohibited or addressed by state school IPM regulations. Therefore it is up to each district to decide whether students and staff can bring and use repellents at school.  Options include allowing students to bring repellents to a school nurse, and having the nurse apply if needed. Another option might be to allow only cream or non-spray repellent formulations, especially for band and athletic departments in middle and high schools.  The time to decide on the appropriate policy, however, is now, before students return to campus.  For more information on insect repellents, see the excellent repellent guide put out by the National Pesticide Information Center.

As a public service, consider assisting the Texas Department of State Health Services and other local health authorities get the message out about mosquito control.  There are many useful educational materials and websites (see below) that parents should be aware of. School districts can play a useful role in getting mosquito awareness information out to our communities. Consider linking this information in your school district’s website.

Some quick facts about mosquitoes and West Nile virus: 

• The southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, is the primary carrier of WNV in most of Texas (different species carry the virus in other parts of the country). This mosquito is a container breeder.  It prefers to breed in small containers or puddles of standing water. 
• Water must stand for 10-14 days to be a problem for mosquito breeding.  It doesn't have to be a lot of water, but this is approximately how long it takes for mosquitoes to complete their life cycle at 85-90 degrees F.  
• Remember stagnant, polluted (stinky) water is the water that Southern house mosquitoes love.  Water where fish are present, such as a pond or permanent stream is not usually a big source of mosquitoes. 
• Not all people are equally attractive to mosquitoes. Body chemistry differs from person to person and some of us smell more attractive to mosquitoes than others.  Don't assume that because you aren't noticing bites that mosquitoes are not active.
• Remember the 4 D’s 
•  DUSK/DAWN- Stay indoors at Dusk/Dawn. This is the time of day that mosquitoes are most active. 
• DEET-Use insect repellents that contain Deet when going outside, especially at times closer to dawn or dusk when mosquitoes are most active. 
• DRAIN - Remove all areas of standing water. Examples are pet dishes, birdbaths, and water dishes under potted plants. Repair faulty French drains. Remove debris from rain gutters. Mosquitoes will breed in this debris since it is normally damp under the debris. Remove all piles of dead leaf material from under trees and shrubs. This also is a breeding site. 
•  DRESS- Avoid being bitten by mosquitoes by wearing light colored long sleeved shirts and long pants when going outside. 

Additional Resources

• Check out the eXtension school IPM action plan for mosquitoes.  If you don't have a plan for mosquito control in your IPM notebook, this may be just for you.
• Need a poster, flyer, or other information to hand out to teachers, parents or students? including a sample letter you can send home to parents? Check out this link.
• The Department of State Health Services website on school resources
• Frequently Asked Questions about aerial spraying for mosquitoes can answer many concerns parents (and customers) have about community-wide mosquito spraying
• Mosquito Safari is an Extension website with general information about mosquito identification, biology and control, including an interactive tour of common mosquito breeding sites. 
• Four new videos on how to mosquito-proof your home

Thanks to Janet Hurley and the Texas School IPM program in assembling much of the information for this post.

The Ugly American

American cockroach,
Periplaneta americana

If one were to poll pest control customers about what they thought was the most disgusting insect, there's a good chance the American cockroach would come out at top. First of all it's large and scary, it's very fast and, where it proliferates, it stinks. Add to this that the American cockroach is one of the few cockroaches that readily flies, and you've got a disgusting pest.

Since few people want to admit to having giant cockroaches in their homes, alternative names are often given to the American cockroach, waterbug and palmettobug being the two most common. One of our largest cockroaches (reaching lengths of just over two inches), they often look much larger to a surprised customer. They are often described as three or four inches long.

American cockroaches, while much longer lived and slower to reproduce than the more common German cockroach, can become quite prolific in the right environment.  While an American cockroach female only produces about 12 eggs per ootheca (egg case), compared to the German cockroach's 36, she lives much longer and produces more oothecae and potential offspring over her lifetime (an average 360 offspring vs the German cockroach's 320 offspring).  Left undisturbed, American cockroaches can build up impressive populations, as anyone who has opened an infested sewer manhole cover can attest.

Odors from the droppings and the insects
themselves can be noticeable in heavy
infestations of American cockroaches. Note
the stains from cockroach droppings on
these boxes in an infrequently used
storage area. Photo by Fudd Graham.

I guess one of the things that's always impressed me about the American cockroach is its ability to survive in places with little food.  They are relatively common in urban sewer and storm drain systems, as well as steam tunnels and basements and storage areas of institutional buildings like schools, hospitals, prisons and factories. These cockroaches are often living on the edge, nutrition-wise, making do with feeding on glues and starches associated with boxes and papers. They are opportunistic feeders and while they prefer fermenting foods, they will feed on dog food in the lab and will readily feed on various cockroach baits.

My colleague Dr. Fudd Graham, from Auburn University, was recently inspecting a courthouse with a chronic American cockroach infestation. Following his nose, his inspection led him to a storage room that hadn't been opened for over 18 months. The two tubes of  Advion cockroach bait Fudd applied were gone the next morning along with the cardboard on which the bait was applied. 

Typical of many infested areas of buildings, this room had a floor drain that, due to lack of use, was dry.  Dry floor drains are one of the most common entry points for American cockroaches to enter commercial buildings from sewage systems.  Many people, even building maintenance professionals, are unaware of the importance of periodically pouring a gallon or two of water into floor drains to fill the p-trap that is designed to block sewer gases and insects and other pests from entering buildings.  A dry p-trap allows cockroaches ready access to a utility room or food storage area in a building. Besides filling the p-trap, some companies have developed clever membrane devices that open for water flow, but close between use.  Trapguard and Sureseal are two commercial products and, while they can be expensive to install, provide a long term fix for gas and pest infiltration into storage and utility areas. 

The half-inch-long ensign wasp
(Evaniidae) is a sign of American
cockroach presence in a building.

Its important to remember that controlling American cockroaches has other benefits.  Eliminating American cockroaches helps reduce the potential food supply of rodents in a building. I'll guess that most PMPs have seen the disembodied wings and legs of American cockroaches left on sticky traps. This is often evidence of mice or rats, which are fond of snacking on live cockroaches plucked from sticky cards.  In addition, ensign wasps are a common parasite of American and smoky brown cockroach oothecae, and are often seen flying around buildings that have an American cockroach infestation.  While harmless themselves to people, the presence of these interesting insects is a sign of cockroach presence in a building.