Fly may be depleting U.S. giant silk moths
By Susan Milius
Some of the giant silk moths of North America are taking a beating because an early 20th-century attempt to control another insect went bad, researchers in Massachusetts suggest.
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Cecropia moths, with wing spans of up to 5 inches, fall prey in substantial numbers to a parasitic fly first brought to the United States to rein in gypsy moths, report George H. Boettner and Joseph S. Elkinton of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Cynthia Boettner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Turners Falls, Mass. In a controversial article in the December Conservation Biology, the researchers propose that attacks by the imported fly, Compsilura concinnata, may be an overlooked factor in what seem to be population decreases of the flashy giant silk moths.