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Wasp watchers wanted for boring beetle battle

The Massachusetts Wasp Watchers project is an effort to detect and do something about, no, not wasps, but emerald ash borers, a bright-green bug that eats the leaves of ash trees - and deposits eggs that turn into bark-eating larvae. And it's looking for volunteers.

Seems the smoky-winged beetle bandit wasp, native to these parts, just loves it some beetles, which it carries back to its nest to yum up before tossing the discarded beetle shells. Volunteers monitor wasp nests and collect the beetle husks for analysis by state experts - who are worried that the emerald ash borers, now in New York just 25 miles from the border, will get here and decimate the trees.

The wasps, commonly found in "baseball fields, parking lots, and other places where hard-packed, sandy soil is found," don't sting, so you don't need to worry about making any sacrifices for science.

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Comments

so many jokes, so little time....

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Not to mention the boring beetles. Yawn.

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