Among all Asian insects, the Vespa Mandarinia hornet is one of the most famous. This is not surprising, if only because its enormous size makes it extremely noticeable: a huge wasp with a body length of 5 cm and a wingspan of up to 6-7 cm somehow naturally attracts the attention of a tourist or traveler. It is not for nothing that in Asian countries this insect is also called the sparrow bee - for its impressive size.
However, the Asian hornet has another popular name - it is called the tiger bee for its extremely painful stings. Among local residents, in contrast to the enthusiastic reviews of tourists, the Vespa Mandarinia hornet has rather gained a bad reputation: its bite is deadly, especially for a person with hypersensitivity to insect poisons. If several giants attack at the same time, they can easily bite or cripple almost any person to death.
Among other things, the Asian giant hornet is a threat to all honey bees, so beekeepers in Thailand, India and Japan regularly suffer serious losses from invasions of these predators.
The Vespa Mandarin hornet is one of 23 species of the hornet genus, which also includes common European relatives. The size of this insect is just a simple anatomical adaptation to a hot climate (larger animals tolerate high temperatures more easily because they have a larger surface area for releasing heat into the environment). In addition, due to its size, this giant can count on a large number of potential victims, even those comparable in size to it. Otherwise, the huge Asian hornet is very similar to its other relatives.
As for Russians, we are mainly interested in the Vespa Mandarinia hornet as one of the dangers that can lie in wait when traveling through the exotic Asian region. Therefore, information about what the giant Asian hornet looks like, as well as how to avoid its bites, will never be superfluous.
Asian murder hornets are generally similar in body shape and general color tones to ordinary hornets: they are also yellow with black stripes. However, individual color details still distinguish them from each other.
So, if the Vespa Crabro hornet, better known as the common European hornet, has fairly thin black bands on its yellow body and a dark red head, then the Vespa Mandarinia hornet is characterized by much thicker and more expressive black stripes on its body, as well as a yellow head.
Visually, it is the light-colored head with two large eyes that most attracts attention.
And yet, the main distinguishing feature of the giant hornet, which makes it possible to distinguish this insect from other relatives, is, of course, its size. With its spread wings it almost overlaps a person’s palm, so at the first meeting it seems not quite real, but as if made deliberately unnaturally large. Such sizes help the hornet primarily to obtain food that is inaccessible to smaller relatives.
The Asian giant hornet leads the same lifestyle as all other members of the Vespa genus.
Hornets live in paper nests made from chewed pieces of young tree bark, held together by sticky salivary secretions. A new family is started by the founding female, who at the beginning of the warm season simply lays several eggs in the place where the nest will later grow.
At first, the female herself obtains food for the larvae, takes care of them and looks after them. However, already a month after laying the eggs, young hornets hatch from them, which, in turn, take on all the worries of feeding new larvae and protecting the family. The uterus greatly limits its role - it continues only to lay eggs until the end of its life.
The Vespa Mandarinia hornet is not picky in its diet: the basis of its diet is a variety of insects. The huge Asian hornet will also not mind eating meat or fish washed ashore, fruits and berries. Unlike adult individuals, the larvae are fed exclusively on animal food, however, this feature is also characteristic of all other hornets of the Vespa genus.
Hornets almost never use their poisonous sting to get food. They kill other insects with powerful jaws, which literally crush the chitinous coverings of their victims.
The distribution of the largest hornet in the world is quite wide
A: It is found throughout Southeast Asia and reaches Russian Primorye, where it is quite common and numerous.
It is worth noting that the species Vespa Mandarinia is divided into several subspecies at different points in its range. So, in Japan, for example, there lives a subspecies of the Japanese huge hornet, endemic only to island territories.
In general, hornets of this species are common in different biotopes, but most of all they prefer forests and various light groves. Thus, it will not be possible to meet the Asian hornet in high mountains, steppe and desert areas.
The Asian giant hornet is very poisonous: its poison is considered one of the most toxic among all insects in general. However, due to the fact that this huge predator does not inject the entire supply of poison into the wound when biting, in general, the bite of an Asian hornet is, although extremely painful, but does not pose a mortal danger to a healthy person with a normally functioning immune system.
Every year in Japan, about 40 people die from giant hornet bites. Thus, the hornets here set a kind of anti-record - no other wild animal can “boast” of such indicators.
Due to the presence of several protein toxins in the hornet's venom, its entry into soft tissues immediately activates cell lysis, which is accompanied by instant swelling and inflammation. The presence of histamine and acetylcholine in the poison - substances that ensure the occurrence of an immediate immune response and the transmission of neuromuscular reactions - causes a sharp pain effect, sometimes accompanied by a state of shock in the victim.
“After the hornet bite, I spent three weeks in the hospital. I had huge swelling all over my side and I couldn’t move my arm. The bite itself is simply monstrous - as if a drill is being drilled into the body with an ordinary drill. When the insect bit me, I barely managed to get home and lost consciousness. My wife already called the doctors. And one of my friends died a year ago from a hornet attack.”
Tai Won Xing, Girin
A quite typical response of the body to a hornet sting is considered to be extensive tissue swelling, which was already mentioned above, increased heart rate, headaches and fever.
However, in people sensitive to insect toxins, even one giant hornet sting can cause anaphylactic shock and death. If there were numerous bites, then in this case, even for a healthy person, the attack is fraught with tissue necrosis, extensive hemorrhages and damage to internal organs.
Reproduction of giant hornets
Now let's look at how procreation occurs in the Vespa Mandarinia hornet. There are several key points to highlight here.
1. The family of giant hornets exists for no more than one year.
2. When the housing of these huge wasps grows to a decent size, and there are quite a lot of working individuals themselves, the queen begins to lay eggs, from which males and females capable of reproduction hatch.
3. At a certain moment, these mature individuals swarm and mate, after which the young males die, and the females look for secluded shelters and remain in them until spring.
4. By the rainy season (and in the Primorye region - by winter), the old family completely dies out, since the queen stops laying new eggs.
It is worth noting that sometimes all Vespa hornets do not survive to the time of natural death, since they die from ticks or infections.
A disaster for humans or an adornment of nature?
In a global sense, giant Asian hornets are, of course, dangerous to people, but this danger is not critical, since it is entirely provoked by man himself. These insects are not very aggressive by nature; they will only attack in self-defense or protecting a nest.
Hornets cause much more damage to apiaries, especially those where less aggressive European honey bees are bred. Sometimes hornets manage to destroy an entire bee family in a few hours, and therefore local beekeepers wage an ongoing systematic fight against them.
In general, the mortality rate from giant hornet bites is quite high: in some regions, up to 100 people die per year. But in fairness, it should be said that most of the dead are the same beekeepers who, without special means of protection, actively destroy hornet nests and, as a result, fall under their massive attacks.
An ordinary tourist who accidentally finds himself in the forest next to the Vespa Mandarinia hornet should not be afraid of this insect
– it will not attack without a reason.
In the West, many dietary supplements add synthetic substances similar to the secretion contained in developing hornet larvae. These components are believed to increase human endurance. However, there is no experimental evidence for these claims.
In conclusion, it should be noted that for wildlife, giant hornets are one of the most active natural orderlies. They successfully destroy many forest and agricultural pests, therefore, in most biocenoses - including agricultural lands - they are useful and deserve protection.
Several dozen hornets completely destroyed a bee hive
