STORY: This is the invasive Asian hornet.

But would you be capable to ID it from a look?

The species has been wreaking havoc throughout the globe, preying on native pollinators like honeybees.

And they have been getting away with it – as a result of they’re usually misidentified for different species.

That’s the place the University of Exeter’s new AI-driven system is available in.

It permits customers to identify the hornets with outstanding accuracy and assist save native species alongside the manner.

The system is known as ‘VespAI’.

O’SHEA-WHELLER: “The way VespAI works is – it’s not so much a trap as it is a sort of passive or monitoring station.”

Thomas O’Shea-Wheller is certainly one of the researchers behind it.

“It has this liquid hornet attractant which is made with sugar and fermented fruit compounds which attracts hornets, wasps.” // “And there is a digicam mounted above it which takes photographs of those bugs in order that then the AI can watch all of those photographs and establish what bugs are seeing with a particular lookout for Asian hornets.”

Once the hornet is identified, whoever is operating the system is sent an email or text alert.

The team says catching the hornet’s arrival early is crucial to prevent an invasion.

If this narrow window is missed, the production of new queens can occur and a population will likely establish.

Currently, the UK relies on the public to report Asian hornets.

It’s a laborious and limited method.

Agencies have to manually validate thousands of images each year, most of which are misidentified.

Traditional hornet trapping also ends up killing a lot of native insects.

O’SHEA-WHELLER: “Hornet traps, though they’re designed to draw hornets, are inclined to kill extra native pollinators than they do catch hornets, whereas VespAI is only a digicam and a few meals, so it is not harming something and having no ecological impression because it searches for the hornets.”

So far, VespAI has been tested on the island of Jersey, off the coast of France – where it successfully distinguished between Asian and European hornets, as well as other insects.

As more and more sightings in the UK occur, the team says they plan on deploying additional prototypes.

O’SHEA-WHELLER: “So what we’re attempting to do with the VespAI system is actually deliver a very automated course of. So a monitor that may be awake, the entire time, vigilant the entire time. And that does not require human enter to be continually checking for incursions of the hornets.”