China wasps have come to the U.S. for a good reason. In light of the current situation in Colorado where invasive beetles are threatening to kill ash trees, authorities have summoned China's wasps to battle the aforesaid insects. 

According to 9News, Colorado officials have enlisted the help of China's predatory wasps in an attempt to annihilate the abundant beetles that are threatening ash trees in Denver.

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The beetles were identified to be emerald ash borer beetles and these invasive insects are posing a great threat to the metro trees in the city.

The ash borer beetles have already killed over 50 million trees in 25 states, so now authorities are afraid that things will get out of hand if they won't do anything to fix the problem.

The mechanism for this counterattack against the beetles is actually quite interesting. The wasps are going to pierce the eggs of the beetles and they will lay their own eggs inside. Their own eggs will gradually devour the eggs of the beetles.

"Each female wasp lays an egg and kills an emerald ash borer egg and each female can lay about 60 eggs," Colorado Department of Agriculture biological control specialist John Kaltenbach said. 

This move aims to spare approximately 1.5 million ash trees from the invasive beetles. However, this endeavour isn't as easy as pie. Officials are tasked to keep the imported wasps strong enough through the winter season.

The gnat-sized wasps are to go head-to-head against the emerald ash borer beetles that are destructive pests. This week, officials are releasing 200 wasps, called Oobius agrili, to infested areas in Colorado including the University of Colorado campus, as per CBS News.

"We're hoping that by releasing biocontrols like these, we can slow the spread and better manage the impacts of emerald ash borer in Colorado," Kaltenbach said. 

Authorities have already confirmed that they are releasing a total of 1,200 wasps in Colorado to hasten the process of reducing the population of the emerald ash borer beetles, according to English CNTV.

Meanwhile, arborist Scott Grimes admitted that their counterattack would not really give them instant cure to the problematic situation.

It won't cure the problem but if it slows it down and we can get some other management actions in place we have a good chance to preserve some of our ash trees," Grimes said. 

This is not the first time Colorado released biological controls to stop the alarming population of ash borer beetles. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a control effort that utilized three organisms, namely: China's Oobius agrili, Spathius agrili and Tetrastichus planipennisi. 

TagsWasps, beetles