Surprising find: Asian hornet in a terrarium
Anke dreier
A loud buzzing sound caught my attention.
During the last hibernation period, I had, as always, cleaned and rearranged my terrariums. As I prefer to keep things local, I like to use decorative materials from my own garden. Wood, roots or bark – whatever the garden has to offer.
After the winter hibernation and the return of the Thamnophis sirtalis concinnus group that inhabits the terrarium in question, I heard a loud buzzing sound a few days later!
After a brief search, I found the culprit: a rather large insect, which I had apparently brought into the terrarium unnoticed along with some garden decorations. At first, it was unclear what species it was, but on closer inspection, the characteristic features – such as the predominantly dark body, the yellow tips of the legs and the distinctive pattern on the abdomen – pointed to a Vespa velutina – the Asian hornet. To be absolutely certain, I sent some photos to the biologist and educator Martin hallmen – who is probably better known to us as the author of one of the most famous works on garter snakes – and received confirmation that it was indeed an Asian hornet.
I was able to capture the insect without difficulty, and in conversation with Martin we agreed relatively quickly that it must be a female, as females hibernate in wood and bark.
To identify it accurately – and given that it is an invasive species – I decided to freeze the insect, especially as I didn’t want to release what I suspected was a queen into my garden. As Martin explained to me, mated young queens fall into a sort of cold-induced torpor in winter so that they can establish a new nest in the spring.
Naturally, I reported the find on the relevant websites.
That was the secret behind the ‘hornet in a jar’, which raised quite a few questions at the EGSA annual meeting.
Captions:
01: the terrarium in which I found the hornet
02: the Vespa velutina in question, which I removed from the terrarium
03: unfortunately a rather poor-quality photo, but here you can see the insect in a jar.