Bringing Home The Oops

Interesting article at the Environment News Service about the introduction of Turkestan cockroaches (Blatta lateralis) to the Southwestern USA. The vector for these creepy crawlies? Turns out they often hide in gear brought back by soldiers serving in the Middle East. This article in The Guardian notes that the insects have been hitching rides into America since the Gulf War in the early 1990s. To make matters worse, there has been a rise in the number of folks buying exotic roaches over the internet in order to raise them for lizard food, risking the accidental escape of several other non-native roach species. Yech.

Snakes Eyed

The Army Times is reporting that a group of political leaders from the Pacific Island region known as Micronesia have joined together to ask US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to make sure that the US military doesn't allow the invasive brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) to spread from Guam. The officials want the US to set an official policy that guarantees sufficient prevention measures are in place. Included in these measures: funding for new invasive species detection tools, and a lofty goal of completely eradicating the brown tree snake from Guam.