Talk:Japanese giant hornet

Main distinctive feature
Asian giant hornets have orange heads, but Japanese giant hornets have yellow heads. Am I right? --Fama Clamosa (talk) 11:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC) -- that is not true. The orange head in the upper left is a queen the yellow heads are workers. -- Mike Trout, Hornethunter.com H0riz0n (talk) 01:04, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Possible contradiction regarding food source
It is stated that VAAM "is the only sustenance workers imbibe during their adult lives". However, later it is stated that during attacks on bee hives, the "hornets also gorge themselves on the bees' honey." I assume that the worker hornets do not actually gorge themselves on the honey but carry it back to the hive to feed it to the larvae. Or do the workers actually consume the honey as well? As it is now, the article is not completely clear on that point in my eyes. Perhaps someone with sufficient knowledge on the matter could clean it up a bit? --Ruebezahl (talk) 17:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:21, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * They are incapable of eating solid food. H0riz0n (talk) 01:06, 13 July 2017 (UTC) Mike Trout, Hornethunter.com

Suggested Additions
This article could benefit from adding information regarding the Japanese giant hornet's natural habitat. It could also discuss the eusocaility and altruism of wasps. --nef614 (talk) 21:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That there should be more information about the hornet's natural habitat is a given, but, eusociality and altruism should only be discussed if there points of discussion specific to the Japanese giant hornet. We should not repeat general information already explained in other articles without good reason.--Mr Fink (talk) 05:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Need creative commons content videos? "#OpenMedia hornet" search for all my videos on horents H0riz0n (talk) 01:21, 13 July 2017 (UTC) Mike Trout, Hornethunter.com

Allergy detail meaningless
The fact that people who are allergic to something can go into anaphylactic shock when exposed to it is not specific to venom, or any other allergen. That is basically the definition of a true allergy, that it can result in anaphylactic shock. 142.161.57.230 (talk) 18:45, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 03:13, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Serious issue regarding subspecies, and need for merge
It has come to my attention that in both of the most recent revisions of the genus Vespa, by Carpenter & Kojima in 1997 and by Archer in 2012, they do not recognize japonica as a valid subspecies. Ordinarily, that might not be difficult to accommodate, except in this case, people have created an entirely separate WP article for a former taxon that has essentially not existed for over 20 years. WP is not supposed to promote outdated taxonomy, and given that the world's few actual authorities on hornets do not recognize japonica, there is no justification for continuing to treat it as if it were a subspecies. Accordingly, I am planning a merge of this "Japanese giant hornet" article, and salvageable material therein, to the primary article at Asian giant hornet, which contains the explanation that the former "japonica" subspecies has not been considered valid since 1997. I'm giving a heads-up, essentially, before proceeding with the merge. Dyanega (talk) 20:46, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Merging the two articles is sensible, the problem is that it will not be a particularly easy merge to accomplish. I note that people have already mistakenly tried to suggest that it is the Japanese color form that was found in North America, depsite a lack of evidence for this precise a point of origin. Until and unless such evidence is made known, it should be assumed that the only place to discuss the North American reports is in the main mandarinia article. In the meantime, do we have any broader support for going ahead with the merge? Dyanega (talk) 21:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

My guess is that it depends. Some experts suggested at some point in time they are not subspecies but the same species. But why? Do they have the same external characteristics and same genetic makeup? Why were they disambiguated in the first place? If the source is not clear, I suppose we could be more cautious proceeding with a merger. --Kaledomo (talk) 02:02, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

One hornet to kill forty bees per minute?
"An individual hornet can kill forty European honey bees per minute"

The source is a youtube video(?) but if one hornet can kill forty bees per minute then it's killing .... 1 every less than two seconds? Is that realistic? Is there a better source?

I'm no expert but that just looks unrealistic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.96.41.21 (talk) 22:27, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Murder hornet term
Should we use murder hornets in the lede? It seems like this is becoming a common term for the insect. The lorax (talk) 22:44, 4 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Given that there are no scientific or scholarly sources for this, a name that literally did not exist anywhere until less than a week ago, it seems a serious disservice to glorify what one reporter thought was a great name to use to attract attention. A single sensationalist popular media article hardly seems to qualify under any of the criteria discussed in the Common name article. Aside from that, insects are a group that does in fact have an official entity that governs common names (true also for birds and some other animal groups), and this wasp already HAS an official common name - Asian giant hornet. Dyanega (talk) 23:29, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with removing the latest pop culture sobriquet, especially since it will most likely be forgotten once popular culture's eternally wavering attention focuses on something more amusing, i.e., why no one can be bothered to refer to the flannel moth caterpillar as "Trump's hair" anymore.--Mr Fink (talk) 23:51, 4 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Murder hornet term existed in Japanese, and this is the article on the Japanese hornet, so "殺人スズメバチ" (murder hornet) would seem to be something that should be in the article. -- 65.94.170.207 (talk)


 * Can you provide any references to this term, in Japanese, prior to 2020? I'm not going to include anything without a solid citation. Dyanega (talk) 17:03, 5 May 2020 (UTC)


 * If you do a YouTube search on "殺人スズメバチ" and do a CTRL-F search on your results, you'll find several videos uploaded over the last decade on this topic using the specific term "殺人スズメバチ" (murder hornet)
 * In 2018 MBS covered it
 * Apparently TV Asahi did a segment on the thing in 2004
 * -- 65.94.170.207 (talk) 19:24, 5 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I found another TV Asahi link that was a little easir to decipher, from 2008. These are sufficient evidence for a history of the name, and I've included in the the merged article text. Dyanega (talk) 22:39, 5 May 2020 (UTC)