‘Murder hornets’ – bullies of the arthropod world are hard to track
Washington State, U.S. — Washington state officials say they were again unsuccessful at live-tracking a “murder” hornet while trying to find and destroy a nest of the giant insects.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture says an entomologist used dental floss to tie a tracking device on a female hornet, only to lose signs of her when she went into a forest.
The hornet was captured on Oct. 5 and kept alive with strawberry jam, which she seemed to enjoy, says Sven Spichiger, a Washington state department entomologist.
Scientists then tied a tracking device onto her body and released her two days later onto an apple tree. They lost track of her after she went through some blackberry bushes, though officials believe the tracker was still attached at the time of its last signal.