📸 PhotoVespa mandarinia
Photo: Gary Alpert · CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons Source
Asian Giant Hornet
Vespa mandarinia (Asian Giant Hornet · オオスズメバチ)
Not Evaluated (NE) on the IUCN Red List yet.
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 📏 Length 3.7cm — ~0.4× the width of a credit card (8.56 cm)
- 🪽 Wingspan 3.5cm — Wingspan is ~0× the height of a 1.75 m human
- ⚖️ Mass 4g — Equivalent to ~0.1 chicken eggs (~60 g each)
- ⚡ Speed 40km/h — ~1.1× Usain Bolt's 100 m world-record average speed (37.6 km/h)
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
Site-computed relative index from recorded values; not a formal scientific metric.
📖 1. Overview
With queens reaching up to 5.5 cm in body length, a 7.6 cm wingspan, and a 6 mm stinger, it is the largest and most powerful hornet living on Earth.
🌐 Wikipedia Summary ExtractThe Asian giant hornet, also known as the northern giant hornet, is the world's largest hornet. It is native to temperate and tropical East Asia, South Asia, mainland Southeast Asia, and parts of the Russian Far East. It was also briefly found in the Pacific Northwest of North America from late 2019 but was eradicated by December 2024.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
Its smooth, barbless stinger allows it to sting repeatedly in succession, injecting potent venom containing the neurotoxin mandaratoxin and tissue-destroying enzymes.
🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior
A few dozen Asian giant hornets can wipe out a hive of 30,000 honeybees in a matter of hours, but native East Asian honeybees counterattack with a 'heat ball' defense, in which hundreds of bees engulf a hornet and raise the temperature to 47°C to fatally overheat it.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
It is a major insect predator in Korean forest ecosystems and a key focus of autumn hiking safety education.
📚 Sources & References
- • Wikipedia “Asian giant hornet”
- • Wikidata Q121791
- • IUCN Red List: not evaluated (NE) — cross-checked with the Wikidata conservation-status entry
- • species.nibr.go.kr — mainHome.do
- • animaldiversity.org — Vespa mandarinia
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — author not recorded · CC0 1.0 (Congeneric silhouette — Vespa crabro)
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.