Last February, researchers at an Antarctic research station spotted something alarming: a moth.
Normally, a moth is not a particularly frightening sight. But in Antarctica, where there are no native moths, spotting the insect could only mean one thing—a non-native species had been introduced to the continent. To make matters even more interesting, the moth in question turned out to be Plodia interpunctella, commonly known as the Indianmeal moth or the grain moth, a common household pest worldwide.
In the past few years, grain moths have been spotted at a few different research stations around Antarctica, slowly moving further south. So far, the insects have had a limited impact on the field stations, and scientists believe they are likely unable to survive for very long in the harsh, cold climate of the frozen continent. But this recent sighting, right off the northwest coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, is the furthest south the species has ever been documented—and a reminder of the growing threat that invasive species pose to Antarctica’s fragile ecosystem, especially as the climate continues to warm.
“Any non-native insect poses a potential threat to Antarctic biodiversity,” Hugo Benitez, a researcher at the Universidad Católica de Maule, Chile and the Millennium Institute of Antarctic and Subantarctic Biodiversity, told PopSci via email.
If you’ve ever kept dry food unsealed, you’ve probably encountered a grain moth. The small brown and white insects often lay their eggs in grains like oatmeal, rice or flour, where they wiggle around as larvae and eventually develop into adult moths that flutter about in our pantries and cupboards. While the creatures can’t survive very long in the cold, they can survive indoors in many cold climates, and the species has seamlessly spread across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
Despite this ubiquity, as of a few years ago, grain moths had never made it to…
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