Rhino Beetle

Threat to NG Plantations?

Another Legacy of the Japs

fpHE first consignment of Mauritius wasps arrived in Rabaul, NG, in early October and were taken de livery of by Mr. C. H. Barrett. They will shortly be released and, it is hoped, will commence to feed on the larvae of the rhinoceros beetle that is believed to have been introduced by the Japs during the war, and which is causing damage in New Guinea coconut plantations.

Rhinoceros beetles were not un known in NG before the war, but they appeared to be of a compar atively harmless variety and did small damage. Although great publicity was given to the other Jap-introduced pest, Giant Snails, nothing has been heard until recently of the rhinoceros beetle which the Japs are now alleged to have introduced. If the Japs allowed these pests in from the Marshalls or Marianas, their former mandated territory, then the beetles are likely to be a far more serious problem than the snails. Some of the Marshalls and Mariana islands have been completely wiped out as copra producers by a variety of rhinoceros beetle.

Reparations from our former enemies are among those things nice people don’t talk about these days.

But this seems to

be one of the times when the Japs should pay for their pleasures.

They should pay the cost of remov ing the threat to New Guinea plantations.

In the mean time, it would be interesting to know just how serious is the threat. In the face of the pub

licity and the frantic efforts of the authorities to keep the beetle out of Tonga and Fiji, every time there is the remotest possibility of the pest being introduced there, the calm acceptance of the fact that the beetle is already in New Guinea and has been there for the last 10 years, is amazing. (See Tolala’s comment, page 20),