A hornet species seen across Southeast Asia was found to have settled in Taiwan, raising the number of hornet species in the nation to nine, while the impact of the introduced species on the environment is yet to be evaluated, the Forestry Bureau said last week.
According to a research team, the black shield wasp, or Vespa bicolor, has set up colonies in Taiwan, bureau researcher Lu Sheng-shan (陸聲山) said.
“The black shield wasp is widely distributed across China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India and Nepal, but the insect had not been found in Taiwan for more than a century, since the Japanese colonial period when insect collection works began. Observation has confirmed that black shield wasps attack honeybees at bee farms, and they might sting human and animals,” Lu said.
Like most wasps, the black shield wasp is a predator and pollinator, and it preys on flies, plant lice and locusts, making it an important player in pest control, but it also hunts bees and poses a threat to the beekeeping industry, he said.
The bureau caught several black shield wasps at bee farms in Taichung’s Shengang District (神岡) in 2003, but it could not prove the species had successfully established colonies in Taiwan, because no hives or male wasps were found, he said.
National Chiayi University professor Sung I-hsin (宋一鑫) discovered black shield wasp hives at Miaoli County’s Sanyi (三義) and Tongluo (銅鑼) townships in 2011, suggesting the species had gained a foothold in Taiwan.
Black shield wasps have a limited distribution in Taichung and Miaoli County, and the species might have been introduced to Taiwan accidentally, Lu said.
“Wasps cease activities almost completely in winter, so a queen wasp hidden inside a log or a cargo container might have been transported to another place and established a colony there,” he said.
The black shield wasp population was found to have spread to Hsinchu County, so the researchers set up traps in the county last year to monitor population and distribution, while it is necessary to establish traps across the nation to study the invasive species’ impact on the environment, Lu said.
Invasive species pose a great threat to local ecological balance and the public is advised to report suspected sightings of black shield wasps to the bureau, he said.
However, the threat from the black shield wasp is small compared with the Asian giant hornet, which is the most destructive wasp species to the beekeeping industry among Taiwan’s seven bee-hunting wasp species, and bee farmers must stay alert against Asian giant hornets, Lu said.
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