The brown hornet is an East Asian hornet that takes over other hornets' nests and makes their workers raise its young. It isn't found in the United States; it lives in Korea, Japan, eastern China, the Russian Far East, and northern Myanmar, and scientific papers call it a rare species. It's also called Dybowski's hornet.
Appearance
- Appearance
- Unlike the yellow-and-black hornets most people picture, it has a reddish- to dark-brown head and thorax and a nearly black abdomen. Workers are about 0.7–0.9 in (17–24 mm) long; queens about 1.2 in (29–30 mm).
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Forests
- Mountains
- Range
- Korea, Japan (Hokkaido and Honshu), eastern China, the Ussuri region of Russia, and northern Myanmar. Not native to or established in the United States.
Behavior
- Social life
- A : a queen enters a nest of the European hornet (Vespa crabro) or the yellow hornet (Vespa simillima), kills the resident queen, and lets the host workers raise her brood. As the host workers die off, the nest ends up filled only with brown hornets. A queen that fails to take over a nest can start her own.
Cautions
- Cautions
- Like other hornets, it can sting painfully, and Japanese sources describe it as quite aggressive. Its thick, tough outer shell resists the jaws and stings of other hornets.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
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