HARTBEESPOORT, South Africa (AP) — Dozens of tiny black weevils cling onto a fern plant as it is tossed onto a leafy green mat coating the surface of South Africa’s Crocodile River.
Those weevils aren’t tossed into the river by accident: scientists hope that the insects and their larvae will munch their way through the green mat, which is made up of an unwanted, invasive South American aquatic plant called Salvinia minima.
The plant is steadily taking over freshwater bodies in the northern region of South Africa, suffocating aquatic life, including on the Crocodile River and the Hartbeespoort Dam it flows into.
The weevils, which have been used effectively elsewhere in the
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