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Home arrow News arrow Local News arrow Galway wasp sting in the tail for New Zealand beetle
Galway wasp sting in the tail for New Zealand beetle E-mail
Written by Deirdre O'Shaughnessy   
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
A breed of wasp found in Athenry has been sent on a killing spree by New Zealand scientists desperate to rid farms of a pest called the clover root weevil.

The Galway wasp (croctonus aethiopoides) is unique in that it does not mate because all of the wasps are female and reproduce asexually. Therefore it will not mix with native New Zealand wasps. It has been heralded as a success by New Zealand’s AgResearch crown research institute.

The wasp was found after searches for croctonus aethiopoides in Morocco and mainland Europe proved fruitless, as those varieties mated with New Zealand’s native species. A researcher who took a break from the search to take a holiday in Ireland took a sample of the weevil in Athenry, Co. Galway, and found that the wasp eggs inside it hatched into the perfect wasp. The wasp has now been released onto farms all over New Zealand, and is proving very effective in eliminating the threat from weevils.

The wasp is a parasitoid, which lays its eggs inside the weevil. When the wasp eggs hatch, the wasp grubs eat their way out of the weevil, killing the pest.

Clover is an important factor for dairy farmers, as cows that eat clover produce more and better quality milk, while the crop itself produces nitrogen that further enriches soil.
 


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