OLYMPIA, Wash. — Traps set up to capture so-called Murder Hornets in Whatcom County have found another new-comer that could be beneficial.
The traps allowed state Department of Agriculture investigators to trace captive Asian giant hornets and destroy the first known nest here.
But they also attracted a tiny wasp that is a natural killer of a fly that infests fruit crops.
It’s the first known finding in the U.S. of the wasp that kills the fly by planting its larvae inside the fly’s larvae, which it then feeds on.
Pesticides have been the only defense farmers have had against the fly so far, but entomologists think this wasp could offer a welcome biological solution.