MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 26, 2022
Piles of millions upon millions of dead insects that stained beachgoers’ feet in southern Maine last summer were the end result of an exploding population of an invasive pest slowly killing the region’s native hemlock trees, according to new research from state and federal scientists. Alarmed residents reported a strange black substance that stained the bottom of their feet while walking on beaches in Wells and nearby coastal towns last year. Scientists have identified the odd stuff as the collective corpses of hemlock woolly adelgid, a species native to East Asia that threatens hemlock trees, which yielded a black ink-like substance when crushed.