Their sting is as painful as a red-hot spike piercing the flesh. They crush their helpless victims with powerful jaws. Now, after millennia spent terrorising the mountains and woodlands of Japan, flying cross-country at 25mph, they are living off sushi and kebabs — and turning on human beings. A plague of hornets is bedevilling Japan, home to some of the most aggressive flying insects. Dry weather has allowed them to breed in record numbers, and entomologists fear a surge in deaths caused by the hornets’ agonising stings. In the past excess hornet populations would die off because of a lack of food, but recently the hornets have moved into the cities, where they have found new forms of nutrition. The insects have been seen sipping from discarded soft-drink cans and carrying off lumps of fish and meat from bins and rubbish bags. Local authorities are receiving double the usual number of calls from people asking them to remove hornets’ nests. Between 20 and 40 Japanese die from hornet stings every year, more than the number killed by poisonous snakes.

Evidence suggests a higher than usual death toll this year. Since August five people have died in northeast Japan alone, one of the less-populated parts of the country. Death by hornet sting is caused by anaphylactic shock, an allergic reaction leading to unconsciousness and breathing failure. “It is a pain that you can never imagine until you have experienced it,” Masato Ono, an entomologist at Tamagawa University, in Tokyo, said. He should know — he has been stung 200 times. “It is profoundly shocking, like a red-hot 15cm nail rammed into your body. I have never grown accustomed to the pain.”

View: Full Article | Source: Times Online

*Scratches Japan off his 'must see list' *

Regular hornets over here give me the willies.... I'd probably run and scream like a little girl if I seen one of these son's a b****'s ...

Umm.... can you say OUCH!?

I have the misfortune of living in a rural area were these yellow and black colored buggers like to build their nests in Windows and door ways. They are very territorial and can sting repeatedly , unlike the honey bee that can only sting once. I have two ways to combat them. Chain lubricant that's in aerosol cans downs them immediately. They cant fly with dirty wings. Also I put up traps with sugar water in them. They can get in , but not out.

Sounds mean but my sister is VERY allergic to their sting , so I do what I can to keep them away from the house.

well first of all, what are humans doing near these things?

i cannot co-exist outside barely with these *effing* creatures...seeing one outside makes me RUN inside...i think they are evil, and produce nothing more than an evil civilization of EVIL creatures....thats why i like to KILL them

by the way, notice how they have grey alien eyes?

maybe they are tired of being beaten with notebooks, and flyswatters and are now turning against us for asome odd reason...*swats the air*

I have battled hornets before, nasty SOB's!

I hate stinging insects of any kind. Ever since I was a kid, I've been petrified of bees and the like .........

And some genius brought them to the US to combat the Southern Pine Beetle!

Those hornets are wicked!!! Try being out on a boat with one hovering two feet in front of your face and no matter what direction you move they STAY two feet in front of your face. *shudders*

I bought one of those electrified tennis racket thingies to whack them with.

heh, im glad in england out hornets are stingless and less agressive than our bee's and wasps. even our bee's are'nt all that agressive either. normally.

Dang! I hate wasps & hornets!!!

When I was about 6 my brother thought it would be great fun to knock down the wasp nest that was in our carport. Well, I got stung too many times to count. Him? Since he could run much faster...not a single sting/bite.

The thought of a "Killer Hornet" that doesn't make me all that thrilled.

40nrockinon

Aggressive hornets and such are a real problem, and I hope that someday we can effectively battle these flying beasts.

Too true pallidin,

I feel terrible for those 40-60 people, that's an unpleasant way to go.

I've heard of these things before, they lived in the mountains mainly...but now there moving into the cities?! Well, I aint going to Japan...

I call those yellow jackets... now I'm confused what's a wasp and what's a hornet? It's those Red one's that scare the willys out of me. Mud wasps, the black ones, they don't sting so np with them.

Those big red ones are nasty suckers though.

I use a solution of dish soap and water (more ecologically friendly)
What it does is it stops them from breathing.

Painful, but how was the guy able to compare it to a "red-hot 15cm nail"???

Did he stab himself with a freezing cold 5cm needle and work his way up???

Crazy man!!!

Does anyone know if these are the same Hornets as the ones that wiped out a wasps nest in minutes? There was a handfull of them that killed about 20,000 wasps.

LOL spitfire!!!!

I haven't heard of that one XSAS. Will be on the hunt for that story though, sounds pretty interesting.

Celumnaz it was covered on the TV where it showed the aggression these hornets had... they attacked the bee keepers in there suits, I think the video link to them attacking the wasps nest was posted a few months back on our General off topic section.

I will try to locate the link for you.

That would be an interesting sight to see .

Here guys I finally found the link:

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...topic=46235&hl=