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Comment by teslabox | Hacker News Reader

I heard tumbleweeds are an invasive species. Wikipedia seems to confirm:

"Kali tragus [...] is an annual plant that breaks off at the stem base when it dies, and forms a tumbleweed, dispersing its seeds as the wind rolls it along. It is said to have arrived in the United States in shipments of flax seeds to South Dakota, perhaps about 1870. It now is a noxious weed throughout North America, dominating disturbed habitats such as roadsides, cultivated fields, eroded slopes, and arid regions with sparse vegetation." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbleweed#Plants_that_form_tu...

These are the western equivalent of Kudzu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu_in_the_United_States

I wonder if there any species from the Americas that are invasive to Europe/Africa/Asia... ?

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Argentine ants are well known for having colonised Europe and largely eradicated the local species of ants. Phylloxera almost killed the French wine industry when it arrived in Europe.

American turtles (called "Florida turtles" in French, not sure of their English name) and nutria are also invasive species in Europe, but those were initially introduced on purpose.

Not just phylloxera but the various fungi species that create powdery and downy mildew, among other illnesses for which Vitis vinifera has no natural resistance. And therefore Europeans must now spray fungicides at a level they never had to before.

North America is the centre of diversity and likely origin of the vitis genus, and so has evolved pest resistance that the isolated Eurasian vitis vinifera/sylvestris has not.

Well, that's fascinating. I had no idea the French had the equivalent of french fries, french toast, french beans, french dip, french onion soup, french onion dip, french silk pie, and other stuff that has "french" in the name but probably has no real relationship to France.

Along those lines, "Philadelphia" cream cheese was invented in Goshen, New York. The city name was used because at the time, "Philadelphia" was synonymous with "quality."

You run into a lot of this kind of thing if you're in to word origins.

A known crowd-pleaser in this field is the "Jerusalem Artichoke"[0] which has nothing to with any of the words.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke

I'm convinced the second word was selected because prefixing an "f" tells one most of what one needs to know about this vegetable.

If you meant red-eared sliders as "Florida turtles", they're ironically banned for sale in Florida because they became an invasive species there.

Yep, that's it apparently. According to Wikipedia[0] though they are native to Florida.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eared_slider#Distribution_...

The really interesting thing to me is that phylloxera was combated by grafting old world vines onto new world roots. So as I understand it, most of these super old established vines in France have American roots.

I recommend the book "Dying on the Vine" by my friend George Gale: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520265486/dying-on-the-vine

"Dying on the Vine chronicles 150 years of scientific warfare against the grapevine’s worst enemy: phylloxera."

It's a very entertaining read, he tells the story excellently, and he has a deep knowledge of the subject.

(I know George through the grape breeders community.)

Shadows in the Vineyard [0] has a chapter about this for the benefit of anybody interested in reading about the incident.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18774145-shadows-in-the-...

In the Netherlands at least, an American species of freshwater crayfish has almost completely replaced the native species and its ecosystem is unprepared for it.

And grey squirrels in the UK, of course.

There must be more.

American freshwater crayfish infest all the rice fields here in Portugal. They cause a lot of damage to irrigation and drainage ditches but the number of things that eat them is enormous. It's probably the major reason White Storks here no longer migrate to Africa in the winter. At Vila Franca de Xira, near Lisboa, when the rice is harvested in October, you can see hundreds of thousands of ibis, herons, gulls, flamingos, egrets, spoonbills, storks, waders and everything else you can think of eating crayfish of all sizes.

Similar situation in the UK, we used to haul crayfish out of our sailing lake each year by the boatload.

Mud bugs and squirrels can make good meals, so there's an appetizing way of fighting back.

For example, Racoons: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-overrun...

> Some residents fight back with steel traps or poisonous gas. Some even eat the comical pests, which are said to taste best marinated with celeriac and onions.

That's a nice "fuck you" to racoons . Free food.

I wonder where on the social ladder does eating 'coon fall over there? Is it somewhat up there like most things hunting/fishing related are? (because hunting/fishing/trapping your own meat was generally something the landed gentry did for recreation)

I really hope it's not in the bottom half just because of how uncomfortable that would make certain Americans.

I don't think any American hunting and eating raccoon harbors delusions about the social status of such activities, even in places where it's relatively popular. If anything, it being looked down upon is a point of pride.

That said, I would imagine that raccoons carry a very high parasitic load on account of their omnivorous diet and the places they tend to poke around. I wouldn't hesitate to eat squirrel if offered (I may have even eaten it before for all I can remember), but I'd definitely pass on raccoon meat. (Feel free to correct me, though, about the safety of either squirrel or raccoon meat.)

>I don't think any American hunting and eating raccoon harbors delusions about the social status of such activities, even in places where it's relatively popular. If anything, it being looked down upon is a point of pride.

I agree. I'm just saying that if it's not considered low class in Europe (why would it be?) it'd be amusing if one of the people who normally looks down on people for eating that kind of thing comes across a European who a) occasionally eats 'coon, is b) of similar socioeconomic class to them and c) doesn't see what the big fuss is about because then said American would have to reckon with their prejudices.

>That said, I would imagine that raccoons carry a very high parasitic load on account of their omnivorous diet and the places they tend to poke around.

Yup. A willingness to eat meat and hang around dumpsters certainly ups the stakes. I don't eat raccoon but would have no problem eating one that I know is primarily fed from my compost pit. One from an urban area that's eaten raw meat from god knows what dumpster would give me pause. The same would go for sunk and possum. I'd have no problem eating a Boston Common squirrel. The nastiest thing they eat is probably moldy french fries.

To clarify my point, I'm hoping it's not considered low class to eat racoon in Europe

Another example: late blight, the mold that attacks tomatoes, potatoes, and a few other plants originated in the Americas and "was a major culprit in the 1840s European, the 1845 Irish, and the 1846 Highland potato famines", according to Wikipedia.

Side note: tomatoes and potatoes also originated in the Americas so it's only natural that their associated diseases came from the same region.

Ruddy Ducks. https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/71368

Water Primrose. https://www.ada.org.uk/2018/09/invasive-species-alert-water-...

Northern Willow Herb. https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/114114

...Australia?

We have cane toads. Lots of cane toads. We used to have cane toad drives when I was a kid to stop the spread south. We would fill up wheelie bins full of them and freeze them. Must people just used cricket bats.

In the end we lost. There were just too many of them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia

No surprise when you kill off the weak, dumb and slow ones.

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