This tiny insect, the size of a chocolate sprinkle, has already caused Florida orange growers more than $4.5 billion in dead trees and resulted in 8,200 jobs being lost. Last year it arrived in California. The psyllid (SIL-id) carries the devastating Citrus Greening Disease, one of the most serious citrus plant diseases in the world.
David Hall, USDA Agricultural Research Service
This large, bullet-shaped beetle is believed to have hitchhiked into the United States on wooden pallets from China, Japan or Asia. It first appeared in the United States in New York City in 1996. It infests hardwood trees such as maple, birch, horse chestnut, poplar, willow, elm and ash.
Michael Bohne, Bugwood.org
This iridescent green insect has destroyed tens of millions of ash trees in 17 states in the Midwest and Northeast — including the northern white ash, which is the wood of choice for professional-grade baseball bats, including the Louisville Slugger.
David Cappaert, Michigan State University
In its caterpillar stage, these insects eat grape flowers and grapes themselves. Originally from southern Italy it has now become a significant agricultural pest throughout Europe and has also reached Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Japan.
R. Coutin, USDA
This European native first arrived in the United States in Massachusetts in 1869 and is one of the most destructive pests ever introduced into the United States. During its caterpillar stage, it has a voracious appetite for more than 300 species of trees and shrubs.
John H. Ghent, USDA Forest Service
This is a huge threat to U.S. agriculture which so far has been contained to one county in California and authorities want to keep it that way. The False Codling Moth is originally from sub-Saharan Africa and is now established in more than 35 African countries and Israel.
USDA Pest and Diseases Image Library,
The Giant African Snail can grow to 8 inches long and is now found in Florida. When it can't find one of the 500 or so plants it likes to eat, it will attack plaster and stucco on houses.
Rui Almeida, Creative Commons, via Wikimedia Commons
These stinging ants feed on the buds and fruits of numerous crop plants and also attack in groups, stinging repeatedly. The ants first bite with their mandibles to anchor themselves for a stinging thrust to place venom under the skin. In humans they create painful blisters. They can kill or injure young or small animals.
USDA APHIS PPQ Archive
This beetle is one of the world's most destructive to stored grain products and seeds. It can spoil 30% of the grain in a grain elevator, losses as high as 70% have been reported. It eats wheat, barley, oats, rye, corn, rice, flour, noodles, spices, grains, packaged foods and dry pet food.
Pest and Diseases Image Library
This Australian native arrived in California in 2007. It is very damaging to agriculture and backyard gardens, attacking more than 250 agricultural crops.
R. Anson Eaglin, USDA-APHIS
This tiny fly, just ¼ inch long, is one of the most damaging agricultural pests in the world. Native to Africa, it has spread to the Mediterranean, southern Europe, the Middle East, Australia, South and Central America and Hawaii. It first arrived on the U.S. mainland in Florida in 1929.
Scott Bauer, USDA Agricultural Research Service
This serious pest is especially damaging to fruits, particularly citrus and mango. Slightly larger than a housefly, it was first seen in Central Mexico in 1863 and discovered in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in 1927.
Jeffrey W. Lotz, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
This tropical fruit fly is widespread through much of southern Asia. It was first found in Hawaii in the mid-1940s where it is now a major agricultural pest, attacking nearly every commercial crop grown there except pineapples.
Scott Bauer, USDA
This water mold pathogen was first detected in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1993 and spread to Oregon in 2001. Sudden Oak Death affects more than 75 known plant species but especially oak trees and California Bay Laurel trees, known as Oregon myrtle in Oregon. It has devastated forests along California's northern and central coasts and in one county in southern Oregon.
Joseph O'Brien, USDA Forest Service
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