Greater banded hornet
The greater banded hornet is a big hornet with a dark reddish head and a black body with one wide yellow stripe. It lives in warm forests in southern Asia. It is a strong hunter that raids the nests of other wasps.
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Fun facts
The queen is bigger than the workers and can grow to about 3 centimetres long.
It often builds its nest in a hollow tree or in a hole in the ground.
Its nest is open at the bottom, while most hornet nests in the trees are closed all around.
Inside the nest the hornets keep it nice and warm, between 25 and 30 degrees.
In some places it is all black, while in others its head is red. It looks a bit different depending on where it lives.
Most asked questions about Greater banded hornet
?What does the greater banded hornet eat?
It hunts other wasps and their larvae, honeybees and sometimes dragonflies.
?How big is the greater banded hornet?
Workers are about 2.5 centimetres long and queens about 3 centimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Vespa tropica
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Vespa tropica (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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