Los Angeles herald., 1892-08-10
FRUIT PEST CANNIBALS
ALBERT KOEBELE's NEW RUGS
FROM AUSTRALIA.
The Result of Years Researches in
Australia-Insects Which Will
Fatten on Black and
Red Scale Bugs.

Albert Koebele, of Alameda, the
student in economic entomology, whose
return home from Australia after year
OF research and investigation on behalf
of the State Horticultural bureau, was
noted the other day, has in his posses
sion large number of bugs and insects
that he hopes to successfully colonize in
California, and if his expectations are
realized the scale pests will have enc
mics 80 formidable as to reduce their
ravages to the minimum, and save to
the California fruitgrowers many
thousands of dollars annually. Koebele
is an enthusiast, says the Examiner.
In appearance he is small, pal
lid-faced, energetic German, who is
known to fame as the discoverer of
the vidalia, beneficial insect that
has done much good in p-eying upon
the enemies OF the fruit trees. He
watches over his bugs as if they were
the most precious of earthly posses
sions, and his friends familiarly speak
OF him as the Alameda bugologist.'
The gentleman thinks that in
the orcus Australasia and the
orcus chalybeus, two specimens
of his bugs, and many of which he
brought with him on his return home,
he has found resistless enemy to the
red scale of the citrus trees and the
green aphis of the apple. He is conf
dent they will become acclimated in
time. and will be very successful in de-
creasing the red scale pest, so az to put
an end, practically, to the big financial
loss that the citrus fruit-growers have
suffered from it. Both are species of the
coccinellid@, and are OF beautiful steel
blue color. with bright red spots.
He says that the egg of the orcus
Australasia is yellow in color and oval
in shape, and is found attached to the
surface of leaves at their broadcast end
in numbers as high as fifty The fully
developed larva has an elongated form,
with six rows, of feshy spines covered
with long hairs. In color it is black,
with whitish line extending its entire
length of about quarter Of an inch.
Before changing to the pupa, the larva
exudes an adhesive fluid, by means of
which it attaches itself by the tail to a
stem or leaf, and then contracts it's
length and increases in girth. In prob
ably fifteen hours the pupa becomes in
cased in the ekin of the larva, and as
sumes red yellow color. with three
rows of large black spots. In from eight
to twelve days the perfect insect, in all
its beauty of color, makes it's appear
ance, and becomes bold and aggressive
warrior in the insect kingdom.
The orcus chalybeus goes through the
same strange and fascinating change of
form and color, and is smaller insect.
But if smaller it is none the less moet
effective enemy of the scale pests, des-
troying thousands o. them in its sue
cessful struggle of the Survival of the
fittest." The sterner eek of these in
sects, as we'll as of the frst-named, have
more yellow coloring than the female,
and are distinguished from the latter by
the yellow sides of the prothorax.
6 Leis conformis is the name of another
variety of Mr.. Koebele's beneficial bugs
or insects. 1t belongs to the same fam
lily as the two already described. 1t can
be said to have an unending hatred of
the orange aphis, or red scale, for it
preys increasingly on it, so that it may
be said that in the "bright lexicon" of
its insect vocabulary there is no such
word or phrase as pity for the aphis. 1t
has the same pretty coloring of the orcus
specimens named above, but unlike
them its larva has small feshy projec-
tlons instead of hairy spines. Like the
others, however, it is about a quarter of
an inch in length.
A victorious conqueror of the black
scale is the thalpocares coccophaga,
numbers of which insects the gentleman
has gathered in Australia. They have
such fondness for the black scale that
once on tree infested by the latter
they soon devour them, and 'long for
other worlds to conquer" 1t is a small
insect or moth, with big wings and with
most wondrous blending of pale yell
lowish brown, gray, white and red
colors, the head being of the former
color, the body gray and white, and the
wings red and brownish grey and yell
lowish white. The harmony OF color is
study to delight the artist.
Koebele has other varieties that prey
successfully on the red and black scales,
such as various species of scymnilds and
rhezolius, which he intends naming and
describing, and a moth named chalpo-
chares cocciphaga, which prays so sue
cessfully on the black scale in Australia
as to render it comparatively harmless.
In all of his researches the gentleman
has acted on the theory that the scale
pests and aphides that live at the ex-
I,ense of fruits, crops and flowers must
have their natural enemies in the in
sect kingdom, which, if properly select
ed and acclimated here in sufficiently
large numbers, will, by subsisting on
them, keep the scales and aphides in
almost complete check. He thinks the
insects he has collected will llfully answer
the purpose by the time they have been
sufficiently propagated, because both in
their larval and fully developed states
they have most voracious appetite for
the scale pests, their whole existence, as