North America hunted down the world's largest hornet and declared it eradicated
When the world's biggest hornet turned up near the Canada–US border in 2019, identification centres in the eastern United States were flooded with photos and samples. Not one was the real thing. People sent cicada killers, beetles, even a plastic toy, while the genuine invaders were tracked to a tree near Blaine, Washington.
Vespa mandarinia, now also called the northern giant hornet, ranges naturally across East, South and mainland Southeast Asia and into the Russian Far East, and fossils show the species dates back to the Miocene. Its body reaches 45 millimetres and its wingspan about 75, with queens exceeding 50 millimetres. An orange head with a black digging tooth on each mandible and a 6-millimetre stinger complete the picture. Its venom is potent, and multiple stings or a rare allergy can kill a person. It prefers forests and low mountains, nesting underground in old rodent burrows or near rotten pine roots, and raids other social insects, including honeybee hives.
The first confirmed North American sightings came in 2019 around Vancouver and neighbouring Whatcom County. DNA analysis pointed to two separate arrivals within a few months and about 80 kilometres of each other, one tracing to Japan and the other to South Korea. Officials warned that an established population could devastate bee populations.
In October 2020, Washington's agriculture department found a nest in a tree cavity 2.5 metres above ground in Blaine and destroyed it the next day. The landowner briefly advertised it for sale before a local beekeeper bought it and handed it back. It had held about 500 live hornets, around 200 of them queens, and some went to the Smithsonian's frozen collection. Three more nests turned up near Blaine in 2021. The last confirmed sightings came that year, and the species was declared eradicated by December 2024.
Media coverage popularised the label murder hornet. In 2022 the Entomological Society of America adopted the name northern giant hornet, citing xenophobia linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Asian giant hornet
