To build a better “murder hornet” trap, researchers are turning to the sex pheromones of hornet queens.
using plastic bottles, orange juice and rice cooking wine.
North American researchers have mounted efforts to track down Asian giant hornet nests — like this one collected in its native territory in Kunming, China — in an effort to control the invasive insect’s spread.But potent insect traps should provide “something that would ideally be irresistible,” Nieh says.
Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, Nieh and colleagues identified hexanoic acid, octanoic acid and decanoic acid as key components of a queen’s sex pheromone. In the lab, male hornet antennae reacted — a sign of attraction — to each of the pure compounds as well as a mixture of the three.
The male hornets had a clear preference for the queen extracts, though the isolated chemicals as well as mixes of the three trapped many hornets as well. In one test, for example, extracts from just one gland trapped about 500 male hornets — more than twice the number trapped by full concentrations of the three-chemical cocktail, which itself performed on par with two of the undiluted isolated chemicals. Control traps lacking the extracts or pure chemicals, meanwhile, attracted few males.
Because male Asian giant hornets were most attracted to the pheromone gland chemicals compared with the individual acids or the mix, that means there are probably other compounds in the pheromone that could make traps even more effective, Nieh says.articles, delivered to your inbox
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