Little weevils eat pestiferous vine in Eastern states

Tiny beetles have become the most recent state employees in Maryland, devouring invasive Asian weeds that are usually destroyed with chemicals or heavy machinery," Candus Thomsom of The Baltimore Sun reports. The plant is known as the mile-a-minute weed, and its newfound nemesis, the weevil, only feasts on it. The weed grows six inches a day and covers all other vegetation, strangling it. Though the plant first started in Pennsylvania, it's now found in 12 East Coast states, and state officials hope the tiny weevils can help control its spread.

Maryland's State Highway Administration released weevils this summer at seven wetlands, and four more sites are scheduled to receive them. Officials had already released Japanese beetles to eat the weed. They cause immediate damage by eating the leaves, but the weevils "lay waste to the whole plant over time," Thomson reports. Weevil larvae burrow into stems, killing the plant and preventing it from releasing seeds. The federal government approved use of weevils to control mile-a-minute growth in 2004, and they've been released in 10 states since then. (Read more)