pecker. Ash trees have little genetic resistance to the borer, which is native to China, Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia and far east regions in Russia.

The transplanted Asian beetle "is in a buffet line and everything taste likes an ice cream sundae," McCullough says.

Identifying the emerald ash borer was a detective story. The nation's top beetle experts had never seen it. The world's two leading insect collections - at the Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites) in Washington and the Natural History Museum in London - had no record of it.

Finally, the beetle arrived on the desk of a scientist in Slovakia. He knew what it was: Agrilus plannipennis. He'd collected one in China.

Michigan researchers gave the insect the popular name emerald ash borer in July 2002.

The only scientific information on the beetle was a passage in an old Chinese textbook that a Michigan State researcher had once received as a gift. A Chinese researcher working in Michigan translated the description of the insect.

The aged Chinese scientist who had studied the insect was located, but his research had been destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, a 10-year campaign of repression against intellectuals initiated by Communist leader Mao Zedong in 1966.

"We're starting from scratch, working out the life cycle and biology of the beetle," McCullough says. "Scientifically, it's neat. But it's very depressing to see trees dying in large numbers."

Forestry officials will decide next year whether to create the buffer zone around the infected area. It would be expensive, require the cooperation of many landowners and might not work. The beetle already has been found beyond the proposed buffer zone.

"Removing ash for 300 or 400 miles may not be realistic," says Keith Creagh, deputy director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture. He says it may be more realistic to enforce the quarantine vigorously and continue research on how to kill the beetle.

"I wouldn't back off eradication yet, but the emerald ash borer has already affected an awfully huge area," Schlarbaum says. "I don't think we're going to be able to stop it."

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