Washington state is responding to the news that the Asian giant hornet, also known as the “murder hornet” due to its aggressiveness and potentially deadly stings, has arrived within its borders.
This startling species is provoking fear that already diminished honeybee populations might be in danger and raises concerns for human safety as well. Videos of the murder hornets (Vespa mandarinia) attacking people and animals have gone viral in recent days as Americans face off against the world’s largest hornet.
Two of the most terrifying videos demonstrating the hornet’s killing effectiveness emerged in the wake of the news.
One came from the Twitter feed of
Welcome to Nature, which posted a video of a hornet and mouse “locked in a fight to the death.” The murder hornet is relentlessly attacking a mouse, which wriggles around desperately trying to free itself from the toxic stings—not a pretty sight.
Another video, this one by
Coyote Peterson’s YouTube channel “Brave Wilderness,” was titled “STUNG by a GIANT HORNET!” and shows him (you guessed it) getting stung by a murder hornet while on a shoot in Japan. Peterson’s channel often features him intentionally getting stung or bitten by various stinging, snapping, or biting bugs and animals. And the murder hornet happens to be trending now so ... there you have it.
The self-proclaimed “King of Sting” has videoed himself being stung by creatures as ferocious as a tarantula hawk (also known as the spider wasp, which hunts tarantulas) and the dreaded executioner wasp.
When he went up against the murder hornet in Japan in 2018, Peterson screamed and yelled from the pain. He recently recounted the incident to
Inside Edition in an interview in May 2020. “It will put you in momentous amounts of pain for six hours,” Peterson explained. “My arm ballooned up to twice its normal size, so it was intense.”
Peterson notes that a single sting isn’t likely to be deadly unless a victim has an allergic reaction, but that multiple stings (30 or 40, he said) could be deadly.
This is corroborated by a Japanese study published in the journal
Clinical Toxicology, which found that in their sample, the average number of stings for victims who died ranged between 47 and 71. The study also estimated the number of fatalities in Japan ranging from 30 to 50 per year.
The hornet’s extra-long stinger allows it to pierce through beekeeping suits and thick clothing. Washington State University entomologist Todd Murray emphasized that the hornet has to be stopped before it can spread. “We need to teach people how to recognize and identify this hornet while populations are small, so that we can eradicate it while we still have a chance,” he said in a
statement.
For those people who are unlucky enough to spot a murder hornet, they should report the sighting location immediately to their state’s Department of Agriculture.
Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney warned against vigilante attempts to destroy the hornet’s nests. “If you get into them, run away, then call us! It is really important for us to know of every sighting, if we’re going to have any hope of eradication,” he said.
