Beetles about the size of Abraham Lincoln's nose on the penny are swiftly eliminating trees across the southeastern U.S.
The fungus that they carry gives laurel trees a disease called laurel wilt, killing them. The most commonly affected laurel is the redbay tree.
Cross Creek resident Tom Lawyer has about 10 acres of land and about twenty dead redbay trees.
"They were hard to pick out before, but it's getting easier now," Lawyer said. "They're the dead ones."
Lawyer is one of the first in Alachua County to witness the laurel wilt disease in his own backyard.
About a year ago, the beetle started destroying laurel trees in Alachua County, said Bud Mayfield, forest entomologist at the Florida Division of Forestry.
The species causing the laurel wilt disease is invasive and non-native.
It was carried over from Asia, most likely from infected wooden crates, Mayfield said.
"It's not a huge problem in Alachua County yet," he said, "but it will probably get worse."
Laurel wilt made its entrance in the U.S. in 2002 near Savannah, Ga. In 2005, the disease reached Florida.
It will most likely extend into South Florida where it could harm another tree in the laurel family -the avocado tree, Mayfield said.
Miami-Dade County has the most avocado farmers in Florida, and the introduction of the non-native beetle could ruin the crops and jeopardize the income of the farmers, he said.
In Alachua County, the beetle will not shrink any wallets, but it could kill a lot of trees and the species that depend on them.
In Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, the elimination of redbay would erase a source of food for birds, said Jim Weimer, the park biologist.
Though the beetle has not yet hit the wetland forest, there is little that can be done to prevent it and a lot that could be lost, Weimer said.
"It's a big tragedy that we keep losing these species one after the other," he said.
