F-519568 
Figure 162.—Pine tree attacked by the black turpentine 
beetle, Dendroctonus terebrans. Pitch tubes are 
reddish to white at first but soon assume a grayish 
hue. 
Before 1949, the black turpentine beetle was thought of as a stump-infesting 
scavenger or, at most, as a species that killed patches of bark on apparently healthy 
pines. The first evidence of its widespread killing of trees occurred during an 
outbreak from 1949 to 1951 in Louisiana, when tens of thousands of cubic meters 
of lumber and thousands of cubic meters of pulpwood were killed. Since then, 
severe infestations on slash, longleaf, and loblolly pines have been reported from 
Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Texas. Losses in turpentine 
orchards have been severe. Heavily infested trees yield little resin and usually die 
within a few months. Losses of unprotected seed trees and losses in seed orchards 
also may be severe. Pitch and Austrian pines of landscape value have been killed on 
Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 
Some degree of natural control may result from the feeding activity of engraver 
beetles, wood borers, weevils, and termites which compete for the food of the 
beetle larvae. In low-lying areas, considerable brood mortality also occurs during 
periods of flooding. Losses may be prevented or reduced by minimizing damage to 
- residual trees during logging operations, particularly in wet weather, or by rapidly 
salvaging recently infested trees. Where the salvage of infested trees is not practica- 
ble, they can be sprayed to kill the broods (///9). 
The red turpentine beetle, D. valens LeConte, the largest species of the genus, 
occurs in southern Canada, all the coniferous forests of the continental United 
States except in the south Atlantic and Gulf Coast States, and Mexico. It attacks all 
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