One of very few successful biological controls. They were introduced by the government to combat the spread of Prickly Pear. Prickly Pears were introduced with the first settlers for Cochineal. Cochineal is an insect that feeds on certain species of cactus and from which a scarlet dye is obtained. This dye was used to colour the distinctive red coats of the British soldiers at that time. The Prickly Pear covered over 58 million acres of Australia by 1920 and made the land unusable for agriculture. The Cactoblastis moth was introduced in the 1920's to combat the Prickly Pear as all other methods of removal were ineffective. In the first 10 years alone it had successfully cleared 14 million acres of Prickly Pear.

Wambo Creek, Chinchilla, Queensland.

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Make:	Canon
Model:	Canon EOS 6D
Exposure:	0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture:	f/5.6
ISO Speed:	640
Focal Length:	100 mm
Lens:	EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM