The yellow-legged hornet is a predator: after it sets up a nest in a new neighborhood, its workers head out in search of smaller wasps, flies and bees

Mini radio tags help track ‘murder hornets’ and other invasive insects

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2024-10-06 10:00:04

The yellow-legged hornet is a predator: after it sets up a nest in a new neighborhood, its workers head out in search of smaller wasps, flies and bees to feed the hive’s growing brood. One of its favorite snacks is honey bees. Lingering outside a hive, these hornets, Vespa velutina, capture flying honey bees mid-air, stopping on their way home only to chew the bee up into pellets to feed their young. In the hornets’ native range across Southeast Asia, local bee species have evolved defenses against the yellow-legged hornet’s attacks. But in Europe and the United States, native bees and agricultural honey bees are defenseless.

“As invasives, these hornets are released from any kind of control agents, whereas in southern Asia there are things that prey on them,” says Lynn S. Kimsey, an entomologist at the University of California, Davis. “The threat is that they would expand their population to take up all resources available without any effective control, except maybe us humans.”

In the face of this new threat, scientists are turning to an old technology: radio tracking, which has been used to follow wildlife since the 1950s. Thanks to recent advancements, radio tracking tags can now be made small enough to attach to the hornets’ tiny bodies, and in doing so lead scientists back to their nests. These miniature tags are also being tested on other species, such as the northern giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia), better known as the “murder hornet.”