Animals Are Awesome, Ep. 2 - The Asian Giant Hornet - Edit 2
Before modification by Nate at 11/08/2011 04:36:04 PM
The Asian Giant Hornet may not be as ludicrously terrifying as yesterday's animal, the candiru, but this aptly named insect may just be the baddest motherfucker on six legs.
The Asian Giant Hornet (and its sub-species, the Japanese Giant Hornet) is, as you might expect, the world's largest hornet. It measures in at two inches long, plus a quarter-inch stinger and enormous mandibles (relative to its size). When it gets angry, it bites and stings its target at the same time, and because it's a hornet that means that its stinger is not barbed and doesn't break off in its target's skin. It will sting you over and over again, while chewing on you.
Because it is the meanest goddamn thing on wings, the Asian Giant Hornet comes packed with one of the highest amounts of venom in the hornet world. The venom contains a neurotoxin that in high doses can be lethal even to people who aren't allergic to it. It contains a higher than normal amount of the chemical that causes your pain receptors to flare. That's right, you heard me. The Asian Giant Hornet hurts you more than other stinging things just because it hates your soft pink flesh. In Japan, more people die from Asian Giant Hornets each year than from every other type of wild animal combined, and it hurts more when it happens.
But wait, that's not even the best part about its venom. The venom of the Asian Giant Hornet contains a chemical that attracts more Asian Giant Hornets. Think about that for a moment.
These hornets don't just attack people, though. They are absolutely fearless and will kill pretty much any other insect they can find, including other lesser hornets, and mantises. It can be especially devastating to honeybees. A hornet scout who finds a honeybee colony will fly around signalling other hornets that there's fun to be had. The hornets will then tear the everloving shit out of the bee colony, each individual hornet murdering up to 40 bees per minute by stinging and biting their heads off, while the bees' stingers are essentially ineffective against the hornets. The hornets will commit genocide on the entire colony, leaving up to 30,000 dead bee bodies strewn across the smoking landscape.
What do they do with the dead bees? They don't eat them. The Asian Giant Hornet doesn't eat other insects for sustenance. Instead they take the bodies back to their own nests and chew the remains into a fine pulp, which they feed their larvae. The larvae then basically sweat out a nutritious liquid goo packed with amino acids, which the hornets lick off. The Asian Giant Hornet feeds the dead bodies of its enemies to its babies, and then licks their babies' sweat for food.
Fun fact! The Japanese have synthesized this baby hornet sweat into an energy drink known as hornet juice. This is because the Japanese are batshit insane.
But perhaps the coolest thing about the Asian Giant Hornet is how one species, the Japanese honey bee, has evolved to defend itself against them. When the bees realize there's a hornet nearby, they will prepare a trap, gathering hundreds of bees to face off against a single hornet in an epic showdown. As soon as the hornet steps into the hive like some kind of badass, up to five hundred bees will swarm around the hornet and trap it inside a tightly-packed living ball of bees.
The bees then vibrate their flight muscles as fast as they can, generating temperatures up to 46 degrees Celsius (115 F), essentially cooking the hornet alive at the same time as it suffocates under the press of bees, because simultaneous cooking and suffocating is the only way to kill those fuckers. This temperature is just barely enough to kill the hornet without killing the bees, who have a slightly higher heat resistence.
Other bee species, including introduced European honey bees, do not have this defense, and the hornets rip through them like an excited kid on wrapping paper.
The Asian Giant Hornet can be found in Korea, China, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, and Japan. In some places it is known as the yak-killer hornet, and the Japanese know it as the sparrow hornet.
As someone who has a phobia of bee-like things, I can only say: holy fuck, guys.
The Asian Giant Hornet (and its sub-species, the Japanese Giant Hornet) is, as you might expect, the world's largest hornet. It measures in at two inches long, plus a quarter-inch stinger and enormous mandibles (relative to its size). When it gets angry, it bites and stings its target at the same time, and because it's a hornet that means that its stinger is not barbed and doesn't break off in its target's skin. It will sting you over and over again, while chewing on you.
Because it is the meanest goddamn thing on wings, the Asian Giant Hornet comes packed with one of the highest amounts of venom in the hornet world. The venom contains a neurotoxin that in high doses can be lethal even to people who aren't allergic to it. It contains a higher than normal amount of the chemical that causes your pain receptors to flare. That's right, you heard me. The Asian Giant Hornet hurts you more than other stinging things just because it hates your soft pink flesh. In Japan, more people die from Asian Giant Hornets each year than from every other type of wild animal combined, and it hurts more when it happens.
But wait, that's not even the best part about its venom. The venom of the Asian Giant Hornet contains a chemical that attracts more Asian Giant Hornets. Think about that for a moment.
These hornets don't just attack people, though. They are absolutely fearless and will kill pretty much any other insect they can find, including other lesser hornets, and mantises. It can be especially devastating to honeybees. A hornet scout who finds a honeybee colony will fly around signalling other hornets that there's fun to be had. The hornets will then tear the everloving shit out of the bee colony, each individual hornet murdering up to 40 bees per minute by stinging and biting their heads off, while the bees' stingers are essentially ineffective against the hornets. The hornets will commit genocide on the entire colony, leaving up to 30,000 dead bee bodies strewn across the smoking landscape.
What do they do with the dead bees? They don't eat them. The Asian Giant Hornet doesn't eat other insects for sustenance. Instead they take the bodies back to their own nests and chew the remains into a fine pulp, which they feed their larvae. The larvae then basically sweat out a nutritious liquid goo packed with amino acids, which the hornets lick off. The Asian Giant Hornet feeds the dead bodies of its enemies to its babies, and then licks their babies' sweat for food.
Fun fact! The Japanese have synthesized this baby hornet sweat into an energy drink known as hornet juice. This is because the Japanese are batshit insane.
But perhaps the coolest thing about the Asian Giant Hornet is how one species, the Japanese honey bee, has evolved to defend itself against them. When the bees realize there's a hornet nearby, they will prepare a trap, gathering hundreds of bees to face off against a single hornet in an epic showdown. As soon as the hornet steps into the hive like some kind of badass, up to five hundred bees will swarm around the hornet and trap it inside a tightly-packed living ball of bees.
The bees then vibrate their flight muscles as fast as they can, generating temperatures up to 46 degrees Celsius (115 F), essentially cooking the hornet alive at the same time as it suffocates under the press of bees, because simultaneous cooking and suffocating is the only way to kill those fuckers. This temperature is just barely enough to kill the hornet without killing the bees, who have a slightly higher heat resistence.
Other bee species, including introduced European honey bees, do not have this defense, and the hornets rip through them like an excited kid on wrapping paper.
The Asian Giant Hornet can be found in Korea, China, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, and Japan. In some places it is known as the yak-killer hornet, and the Japanese know it as the sparrow hornet.
As someone who has a phobia of bee-like things, I can only say: holy fuck, guys.
