The Southern Pine Beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis , shown here in a top and side view is the most important bark beetle in the South. It is one of only a few bark beetle species that can successfully attack and kill healthy trees. During one outbreak in the South lasting from 1973-77, the beetle killed the equivalent of 4.5 billion board feet of pine timber. In this slide you can see the typical symptoms of a pine tree killed by attacks of the Southern Pine beetle. The first evidence of beetle caused mortality is discolored tree foliage.
Needles become yellowish, then change to red.
Within one - two months the trees are brown. Typically pines are killed in groups. The size of these groups may range from a few trees up to several hundred acres. In this aerial view of a group of beetle- infested trees you can see various stages of foliage discoloration. When conditions favor beetle survival huge populations of beetles may kill hundreds of acres of trees, as can been seen in this slide of an infestation in the Four Notch Wilderness Area of Texas. 5.