Ar On Rhino Beetle

In N. Guinea

[?]asps Arriving from Africa

\ From Our Own Correspondent.

P. Moresby, Jan. 2.

iVERAL shipments of the Scolia Ruficornus wasp have arrived m Zanzibar and been released on ious plantations in the Gazelle linsula. This is a Rhinoceros tie parasite, and it is hoped in this f to get this coconut pest under itrol. he Rhinoceros Beetle is now a ous menace, having flourished un cked throughout the war years, ( it is vital for the future of the ra industry that effective control isures be found. dr. Charles Barrett, the famous stralian naturalist, looked after release of the wasps for the ministration during the absence Mr. G. Dunn, the government sinologist, who was in Zanzibar patching the wasp consignments, returned to the territory in late member. dr. Barrett’s son, Don (president the NG Planters’ Association), suggested that European planters, owners of native coconut groves.

get busy and clear their properties of pest-breeding grounds. He thinks, too, that a lot of help could be given by collecting adult coconut beetles, as was done in pre-war years. These measures, he considers, are necessary to assist the present Ruficornus wasp effort at biological control of the Rhinoceros Beetle.

The favourite breeding-ground of the beetle is the rotting stumps of old palms, and they have also been quick to utilise the pockets of rotten trunks caused by wartime strafihg and machine-gun firing.