MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCBD) - Clemson University officials detected an invasive beetle species in Mount Pleasant, and are now working to contain the spread.

The Asian longhorned beetle is a wood-boring beetles that kills hardwood trees such as maple, elm, birch, or willow trees. The insects spend their lifecycle as larva in the wood, feeding off of it and interrupting the sap flow.

"On the individual tree basis, I mean they do create galleries inside the wood so you can have the whole trunk come down. You could have big limbs come down as bore down the inside and basically create voids that kill the tree ultimately," Eddie Bernard, urban forester for Town of Mount Pleasant, said. "As well, they weaken the wood they are in."

This is not the first time they have been detected in South Car

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