From landfills and laboratories to archeological digs and deep
space The Columbus Dispatch - November 14, 2011 02:05 PM I
always knew that the ash tree standing behind my Westerville
home was an endangered species. As the Dispatch's environment
and science reporter, I've written stories for more than five
years now about the voracious emerald ash borer, an invasive
insect from Asia that's literally chewing its way through Ohio's
ash trees. Ash borer larvae kill trees by eating tunnels through
the soft wood under the bark that supply trees with water and
nutrients. An adult tree is supposed to die within three to five
years of being attacked. My tree, which was taller than my two-
story house, looked perfectly fine last year. This year it was
completely dead. When landscapers came last Tuesday to cut it
down, there wasn't a single section of this tree that wasn't
riddled with the larvae tunnels shown in these photographs and
the D-shaped exit holes that adult borer beetles chew through
the bark when they are re