Asian giant hornet
species of insect
The Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia), 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.
Asian giant hornets prefer to live in low mountains and forests, while almost completely avoiding plains and high-altitude climates. V. mandarinia creates nests by digging, co-opting pre-existing tunnels dug by rodents, or occupying spaces near rotten pine roots. It feeds primarily on larger insects, colonies of other eusocial insects, tree sap, and honey from honeybee colonies. The hornet has a body length of 45 mm (1+3⁄4 in), a wingspan around 75 mm (3 in), and a stinger 6 mm (1⁄4 in) long, which injects a large amount of potent venom.
Taxonomy and phylogeny
V. mandarinia is a species in the genus Vespa, which comprises all true hornets. Along with seven other species, V. mandarinia is a part of the V. tropica species group, defined by the single notch located on the apical margin of the seventh gastral sternum of the male. The most closely related species within the species group is V. soror.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q121791. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Asian giant hornet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.