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Giant Chinese Hornets...

Z

zanemoseley

Senior member
Just read they've killed almost 20 people this year in China. They're freaking huge.

vespa-mandarinia.jpg
 
Yeah that's the main stream variety of Asian giant hornet, they are crazy aggressive. I think the subspecies in Japan might even be slightly larger, not sure, but they are amazing.. and yep, pretty dangerous. I think in Japan about 40 people die a year from them. You get stung a handful of times and you need help, you get get stung 20 or 30 times and you can die.

The videos of just a dozen or so of these brutes absolutely demolishing a bee nest is nuts, but even cooler is that the native Japanese honey bee has evolved the smarts to deal with the giant;s vastly superior fighting abililty. They do a surprise dog pile a giant, hang on for dear life, and vibrate themselves like hell until as a mass they are 1 degree above what the giants physiology will tolerate. They cook the bastards!

That just impresses so much I can't you. 😉
 
kage69 said:
They do a surprise dog pile a giant, hang on for dear life, and vibrate themselves like hell until as a mass they are 1 degree above what the giants physiology will tolerate. They cook the bastards!

That just impresses so much I can't you. 😉
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That is impressive. Amazing how that kind of behavior gets learned, and passed down through generations.
 
And as always happens, these things will make it to North America somehow and take hold. Lacking their natural predators they'll thrive and take over. 🙁
 
kage69 said:
The videos of just a dozen or so of these brutes absolutely demolishing a bee nest is nuts, but even cooler is that the native Japanese honey bee has evolved the smarts to deal with the giant;s vastly superior fighting abililty. They do a surprise dog pile a giant, hang on for dear life, and vibrate themselves like hell until as a mass they are 1 degree above what the giants physiology will tolerate. They cook the bastards!

That just impresses so much I can't you. 😉
Click to expand...


Yeah, it's really awesome. And it will remain awesome until they learn that they can take us out the same way.

I for one welcome our new insect overlords.
 
UglyCasanova said:
And as always happens, these things will make it to North America somehow and take hold. Lacking their natural predators they'll thrive and take over. 🙁
Click to expand...

Maybe zebra mussels eat them :^D

I wonder how they deal with African honeybees? The end of the world might come at the stingers of battling insects :^D
 
Thank goodness for the cold... seems like nothing big and hideous lives north of the Canada-US border that I know of.
 
lxskllr said:
That is impressive. Amazing how that kind of behavior gets learned, and passed down through generations.
Click to expand...

And not just that, but the domestic bees had to evolve the physical ability to resistance the additional heat as well. Their limit tops out a 1 degree above what it takes to kill a giant hornet. Just enough to get the job done.

Evolution. It's faaantastic.
 
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here they aren't that big luckily, and they're really not much aggressive either if you leave them alone while they destroy all your fruit, normal wasps try to steal your BBQ instead and get cranky if you chase them away.
If they come to Europe they'll just devastate the honeybee population that is already struggling with the mysterious mortality.
 
lxskllr said:
Maybe zebra mussels eat them :^D

I wonder how they deal with African honeybees? The end of the world might come at the stingers of battling insects :^D
Click to expand...

Heh.

I mentioned them to my neighbor earlier this morning after she brought up the paper wasps that are everywhere right now. Was all 'hey at least they're not those freaking huge ass hornets in Japan!' She said something to the tune of "Oh I'm sure some idiot will bring them over and release them at some point, like a python or those African rats. It'll be just one more thing we'll have to deal with. Damn, how would we even deal with those?!"

I yelled back, "Well, clearly it's a job for cane toads!" 😉
 
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And the more I think about it, I'm happy for the Japanese to have the biggest of something.


🙂

Hai. Huuuuge, bull bus ho-ru-neto. Vedy big. Vedy...dane geras.
 
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