Question

An empty milk bottle containing over-ripe banana was kept open at a fruit shop. Give the common and the scientific names of the insect which will soon fly into it.

Answer 1

: Thank you so much for helping me publicize this little-known fact: Yes, the combination of beer and bananas can be a killer.

Don’t believe me? Just ask the flower beetles at the Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, Fla. A few years ago, the club was having major problems with these little pests. It wasn’t so much that the beetles were destroying the greens, but scavengers such as raccoons and armadillos were leaving unnatural divots while digging up beetle grubs for a midnight snack.

So here’s what an insect expert recommended: Cut holes in a plastic milk jug and use a paper clip to suspend an empty yogurt cup from the top of the jug. Fill the cup with several slices of ripe bananas along with several ounces of beer. Then, fill the bottom of the jug with 3 inches of soapy water and hang the whole mess in a tree.

When the adult beetles are in flight, they are attracted to their favorite food, the banana. Unfortunately for them, they’ll also drink the beer along with it, get drunk and fall into the soapy water to die. When they hung 11 of these traps in strategic spots, the groundskeepers swear they found hundreds of dead beetles a day in each trap during peak beetle season.