It may seem that such a battle is stacked against the little bug, but the mountain pine beetles are actually ravaging the western forests around Mount Rushmore. The seemingly insignificant underdog has resulted in the death of an alarming one million trees. What’s worse is that the threat is spreading right across the nation and spilling into Canada as well.

So how does this tiny bug get the better of a single tree, much less a whole forest? Apparently it is a slow and steady demise that occurs over a fair period of time where the tree is concerned. The summer season sees the beetles boring into tree barks as they are attracted by the resin the tree releases.

The next week the beetles lay eggs in the burrows. The blue fungus deposited by them acts as food for the next generation. As the larvae hatch in the week after laying they also develop resistance to the coming cold. They will eventually turn into pupae and then adults over the next five months to a year.

All that time they continue feeding o the phloem and fungi and killing the tree. The tree still appears green for a year despite the fatal mauling that the beetle gives it. Eventually it will turn red and die, needing to be culled. Science projects are researching how the trees can be saved from this epidemic.