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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Federal officials have begun searching trees near an air force base in Northern California for a destructive Asian beetle officials believe arrived last month in a shipment of tiles from China.
Two Asian longhorned beetles were found outside a privately operated warehouse at the former McClellan Air Force Base outside Sacramento, officials said. A team of U.S. Forest Service smokejumpers, firefighters trained in parachuting into forest fires, have been searching for traces of the insects in trees near the site since Monday.
The beetle — an inch-long, bullet-shaped insect with white freckles and long antennae — is known for its voracious appetite for hardwood trees such as maple, birch, elm, poplar and sycamore.
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