If things weren’t feeling quite apocalyptic enough for you these days, don’t bother cuing the locusts. The murder hornets are back instead.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture announced Thursday that the first sighting of an Asian giant hornet in 2021 has been recorded in Washington state. The invasive and violent insect was spotted by a resident in a rural area east of Blaine, Wash., about two miles from where a large nest of the species was eradicated last fall.
The hornet was photographed attacking a paper wasp nest and state entomologists reviewed and confirmed it as an Asian giant hornet on Thursday.
WSDA will now set live traps in the area in an attempt to catch, tag and track the hornet back to a nest. This high-tech insect tracking was employed last year and involved some device insight and guidance from a researcher at the University of Washington.
WSDA said the public’s help, in Washington and Canada, in spotting the hornets is critical to stopping the pest.
The Asian giant hornet is the world’s largest species of hornet. The first-ever sightings occurred in the U.S. in December 2019 in Northwest Washington state. The hornets are known to attack and destroy honeybee hives during a “slaughter phase” where they kill bees by decapitating them. A small group of Asian giant hornets can kill an entire honey bee hive in a matter of hours.
A dead hornet was reported in June near Marysville, Wash., in Snohomish County, but WSDA figured it was an old male from a previous season.
WSDA has a dedicated page for reporting hornet sightings.
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