nick
September 26th, 2009, 06:42 AM
OK, so I'm going to be staying indoors a lot........
An army of deadly Chinese hornets is heading north through France towards Britain, after attempts to trap and poison them failed.
The hornets, Vespa velutina, are thought to have arrived in Bordeaux on a container ship from China in 2004 and have been rapidly expanding their population and territory ever since.
They are blamed for slaughtering nearly a third of the bees in the Gironde department and there were also reports of summer swarms attacking a mother and baby, then chasing cyclists and other passersby in an incident in Lot-et-Garonne.
Now the hornets have been seen near Paris and experts are warning that they could cross the Channel to the south coast of England.
Stuart Hind, head of the Natural History Museum's centre for biodiversity, said an invasion of the UK was "very likely".
Full story here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6233725/Chinese-hornet-army-plotting-invasion-of-UK.html)
An army of deadly Chinese hornets is heading north through France towards Britain, after attempts to trap and poison them failed.
The hornets, Vespa velutina, are thought to have arrived in Bordeaux on a container ship from China in 2004 and have been rapidly expanding their population and territory ever since.
They are blamed for slaughtering nearly a third of the bees in the Gironde department and there were also reports of summer swarms attacking a mother and baby, then chasing cyclists and other passersby in an incident in Lot-et-Garonne.
Now the hornets have been seen near Paris and experts are warning that they could cross the Channel to the south coast of England.
Stuart Hind, head of the Natural History Museum's centre for biodiversity, said an invasion of the UK was "very likely".
Full story here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6233725/Chinese-hornet-army-plotting-invasion-of-UK.html)