A mysterious plague is killing our snow gums in the Snowy Mountains

Tom Melville
Updated February 22 2021 - 2:00pm, first published February 20 2021 - 10:00am
Jozef Meyer checks a light trap in Kosciuszko National Park. Picture: Kate Matthews.
Jozef Meyer checks a light trap in Kosciuszko National Park. Picture: Kate Matthews.

Jozef Meyer reaches into a black perspex cone. "I've got a phoracantha!" he says excitedly as he withdraws a small, coffee coloured beetle and shows it to me. It's about three centimetres long with tortoise shell markings on its back. It's flat like a cockroach and has long, swooping antennae the length of its body.

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Tom Melville

Tom Melville

Host, Voice of Real Australia

Originally from Canberra, Tom Melville worked for the BBC in the UK and as a freelancer in Tunisia before coming to ACM. He is the host of ACM's national podcast Voice of Real Australia. urlgeni.us/VORAPod