Vespa mandarinia
Vespa mandarinia, the Asian Giant Hornet, is roughly the size of my cell phone. Two or three dozen of these can wipe out a hive of 30,000 European honey bees is a few hours -- Japanese honey bees, on the other hand, crowd around the invading hornets and heat them to over 115 degrees Farenheit to kill them. It's an interesting example of a species that has evolved a simple defense against a nasty predator, and how a similar species that lacks an efficient defense gets mauled by that predator.
2 comments:
I was stung by a hornet today on my back, I think it flew into my shirt. It was so painful and for the whole day. Now I have a huge gaping red hole in my back. Do black hornets bite or sting?
Hornets sting. Their stinger is basically a hypodermic needle, with a venom gland at the base, that they primarily use to kill other insects for food. They only inject a fraction of the venom a bee would (bees sting defensively and need to dump a lot of venom into an attacker to protect the hive) but have a chemical in their venom that triggers a pain response in nerves.
They belong to an order of insects called hymenoptera, which I think has the most interesting insects -- I should do an actual post about them though, or this comment will be way too long.
Basically, put an ice pack on it and some topical antihistamine and/or ibuprofin if you need. It's pretty unlikely you'd need medical attention if you made it as far as the computer to leave a comment, so I think you'll survive.
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