The old saying goes there’s nothing new under the sun and it seems solar panels have been in use by a member of the insect world long before man’s eureka moment. Introducing the solar powered Oriental Hornet.
The Oriental Hornet resembles the European Hornet, or European Wasp as it is known in Australia.
The Oriental Hornet builds its nest underground. Worker hornets dig the soil and remove it from the nest repeatedly by picking up the soil in their mandibles and flying out of the nest for a short distance, then dropping the soil.
While most hornets have their peak activity early on in the day, the Oriental Hornet’s activity increases with the amount of sunlight available. The number of Oriental hornet workers emerging from a nest entrance around midday has been observed around double the number of those emerging in the morning or evening hours. Why is it that this species bucks the trend?
It’s not due to warmth or the sun having a positive effect on a hornet’s mood, encouraging it to work; but it may be that it utilises the sun as a power source.
A study by a number of researchers entitled “Solar energy harvesting in the epicuticle of the oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis)” has found the yellow band on the hornet’s abdomen is made of series of tiny protrusions and valleys that capture light, which is harvested for energy – not as heat to warm up hornet muscles (or the insect equivalent thereof), but electricity to power them.
In a previous study, the team were looking for a correlation between meteorological factors such as temperature, humidity and ultraviolet B (UVB) in connection to the hornet’s behaviour; but the only significant correlation observed was between the level of UVB radiation and hornet-digging activity.
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