US officials say they made an 'extraordinary' discovery of a pest being imported into the country for the first time

• Customs and Border Protection officials detected a "first-in-nation" pest at the Mexico-California border.
• The Corimelaena palmeri was not previously recorded in the USDA Pest Identification database.

US Customs and Border Protection said they intercepted a "first-in-nation" pest that was hiding in fresh flowers being imported from Mexico.

CBP Agriculture Specialists made a "remarkable finding that will go down in history" when they detected the bug in a shipment of flowers at the Mexico-California border in October, according to a CBP press release.

Officials later identified the small, black bug as the Corimelaena palmeri, an insect that had never been recorded in the US Department of Agriculture Pest Identification database, per the press release.

Sidney Aki, a CBP field operations director in San Diego, said agriculture specialists "intercept tens of thousands of pests" each year.

"Discovering a first-in-nation pest at one of our ports of entry is an extraordinary achievement," Aki said in the press release. "This accomplishment is a reflection of their immense hard work and dedication."

In an inspection on October 23, specialists detected the specimen in a tractor-trailer shipment of cut flowers at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility, per the press release. USDA Plant Protection and Quarantine Identifiers forwarded the pest for lab identification.

As a precaution, the flower shipment and its driver were sent back to Mexico.

CBP officials detected at least six first-in-nation pests in 2022, including beetles, stink bugs, and leafhoppers.