Exeter University Develops AI to Detect Invasive Asian ‘Murder’ Hornets
An English university has developed an AI-detection system that can identify a picture of an invasive Asian hornet in yet another innovative and positive application of the emerging technology.
Not quite the “murder hornets” that invaded America a half-decade ago, the Asian hornet is nevertheless an extremely bothersome pest for all the same reasons, including the bug’s ability to wipe out honey bee colonies and cause anaphylactic shock in humans from their stings.
VespAI, could identify the species with “almost perfect accuracy”, said University of Exeter, whose scientists developed the device.
Looking like an upturned punch bowl with a small device mounted on top, it also attracts the insects, which gives a camera the opportunity to take an image and determine what species it is.
Since one single hornet can kill and eat 50 honeybees in a single day, the record-number of Asian hornet sightings in the UK in 2023 spurred the university into finding a way to combat them.
Nests have been found in East Sussex, Kent, Devon, and Dorset, and Dr. Peter Kennedy, who envisioned how AI might be used to defend English shores from the invader, told the BBC that the country’s first line of defense—citizen identification—was highly flawed, with many sightings being misidentified.
“Our system thus aims to provide a vigilant, accurate and automated surveillance capability to remediate this,” he said.
“VespAI does not kill non-target insects, and thus eliminates the environmental impact of trapping, while ensuring that live hornets can be caught and tracked back to the nest, which is the only effective way to destroy them.”
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Designed to be inexpensive and highly-versatile, the VespAI could be used by scientists and game wardens, but also beekeepers, who would receive an alert if the system detected a creature it believed to be an Asian hornet.
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Though only a prototype, it has preformed very well in field tests.
Asian hornets have invaded countries across the European continent, and their stings have hospitalized and even killed residents in agricultural areas.
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