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Cactus Moth (Cactoblastis cactorum) |
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Establishing a National Detection Network
APHIS-PPQ, ARS, and US Geological Survey are working with Mississippi State University’s Georesources Institute (MSU-GRI) to set up a monitoring network for federal or state managed lands such as wildlife refuges, national parks and seashores, as well as lands managed by non-governmental organizations.
The MSU-GRI site is password protected for agency or privately managed land units and can be accessed: http://www.gri.msstate.edu/research/cmdmn/. You can also view their brochure on C. cactorum. For more information, please contact John Madsen.
These efforts will compliment state departments of agriculture surveys of nurseries and residential properties using our Cooperative Agriculture Pest Survey (CAPS) program with data recorded in our National Agriculture Pest Information System (NAPIS), whose public site is at: http://www.ceris.purdue.edu/napis/.
If you are in an area in the continental US where C. cactorum is not thought to be established (outside of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, or South Carolina), and think you have seen larvae that appear to look like C. cactorum on prickly pear cactus, please contact your state department of agriculture, the USDA, APHIS, PPQ office, or the entomology department at the state university. Larval specimens preserved in ethyl alcohol and collection information will be required for proper identification.
View a map showing the managed land units within ten miles along the US Gulf Coast. Courtesy of The Nature Conservancy. (map file size 8mb)
Read the Stakeholder Announcement by the National Invasive Species Council outlining an initiative by member agencies to handle the potential spread of the cactus moth.
