Asian Giant Hornet in Snohomish County Pt 2
I’m Bob Larson. An Asian Giant Hornet has now been found in a second Washington County. This one was discovered in Snohomish County on June 4th and confirmed on June 11th.
Washington Department of Agriculture Entomologist Sven Spichiger spoke Wednesday about what they know so far …
SPICHIGER … “The only information we have is that a slightly dried out dead specimen was collected off of a lawn in Marysville. And, there really isn’t enough information to even speculate on how it got there or how long it had been there, just to say that it appears that it had not been from this season.”
And, Spichiger says from a different family …
SPICHIGER … “We did run some genetic analysis on it and it is definitely not the same genetic line as the ones that we have found in B.C. or we actually tested numerous specimens from Whatcom County and it just is not a match for those at all.”
But where it came from, Spichiger says would be speculative …
SPICHIGER … “The data set that we have globally is way too small to figure out that at this time. But, what we can say with quite a bit of confidence is that it really just does not match that that we’ve already found in Whatcom County or up in Nanaimo and it does appear to be a different event than those others that we have dealt with in years previous.”
Every suspected sighting should be reported to the Washington Department of Agriculture at agr.wa.gov/hornets.
