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PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
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How to fight an invasive bug: Meet the emerald ash borer (pictured above), an invasive beetle that has destroyed many species of ash trees across North America. This little pest has cost the U.S. more than $10.7 billion over a decade, both in control efforts and in the loss of trees themselves. Scientists are hoping a parasitic wasp, originally from the Russian Far East, will finally be the one to keep the beetle in check. The S. galinae can do what other wasps can’t: inject its eggs into ash borer larvae living on older, larger trees and tolerate cold, Nat Geo reports. Once the female deposits eggs in the beetle’s larvae, the developing wasps will consume the ash borers from the inside out.
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