Oriental hornet

The Oriental hornet, Vespa orientalis, is a social insect of the family Vespidae. It can be found in Southwest Asia, Northeast Africa, the island of Madagascar, the Middle East and parts of Southern Europe. Oriental hornets have also been found in a few isolated locations such as Mexico due to human introduction. The Oriental hornet lives in seasonal colonies consisting of caste system dominated by a queen. The hornet builds its nests underground and communicates using sound vibrations. The hornet has a yellow stripe on its cuticle (exoskeleton) which can absorb sunlight to generate a small electrical potential, and it has been suggested that this might help supply energy for digging. The adult hornet eats nectar and fruits and scavenges for insects and animal proteins to feed to their young. Because they are scavengers, the hornets may also serve as a transmitter of disease following consumption of infected plants. The hornets are a primary pest to honey bees, attacking bee colonies to obtain honey and animal proteins. The sting of an Oriental hornet can be quite painful to humans and some humans are allergic to stings. The Oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis) belongs to the family Vespidae which consists of wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets. It is a member of genus Vespa which constitutes true hornets.Vespa orientalis has unique adaptations to arid climates which disguises its phylogenic relationship to other species of the Vespa genus, making it difficult to map based on morphological data alone. Thus the use of molecular data was crucial to correctly mapping its phylogenetic relationships. Based on molecular phylogenetics V. orientalis is most closely related to Vespa affinis and Vespa mocsaryana. The adult hornet has two pairs of wings and a body measuring between 25 and 35 mm long. Males and workers are smaller in size than the queen. Vespa orientalis is a reddish-brown color and has distinctive thick yellow bands on the abdomen and yellow patches on the head between the eyes. They have very strong jaws and will bite if provoked. Females (workers and queen) have an ovipositor which is a specialized organ shaped like a tube that is used for laying eggs. The ovipositor extends from the end of the abdomen and is also used as a stinger.Drones (males) can be distinguished from workers (females) by the number of segments on their antenna. Drones have 13 segments while workers only have 12.The Oriental hornet looks similar to the European hornet (Vespa crabro) and should not be confused with the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) of Eastern Asia. Oriental hornets can be found in Southwest Asia from Turkey to India and Nepal, throughout the Middle East, in Northeast Africa in countries such as Ethiopia and Somalia, and in parts of Southern Europe in Greece, Bulgaria, Malta and the southern tip of Italy. Oriental hornets have been introduced by humans into additional locations including Madagascar, Mexico, Xinjiang, China as well as the occasional introduction via fruit in Belgium and the UK. The Oriental hornet is the only member of the Vespa genus that can be found in desert climates such as those it inhabits in Northern Africa, the Middle-East, and parts of Southwestern Asia. The Oriental hornet typically lives in nests that it digs underground. A nest contains multiple combs in which the colony lives. While nests are most commonly found underground, some paper nests are constructed in protective hollows such as inside hollow trees, in shipping containers, parked vehicles, and aircraft. To construct the paper nests, the workers strip the bark from twigs, tree branches, and shrubs in order to collect fiber. Oriental hornets live in seasonal colonies which are formed every year in the spring by a single queen who mated during the previous fall. During the fall, the queen lays her eggs which will develop into new queens and drones. After mating, the drones die off while the fertilized queens seek hideouts in which to hibernate for the winter. The colony will grow throughout the spring and summer months until the population and activity of the colony peaks in the late summer and early fall. The peak size of the colony is several thousand individuals and a colony will contain on average 3-6 combs each containing 600-900 individual cells. Vespa orientalis is a type of social wasp. Individuals live collectively in colonies with one queen and thousands of workers. Social wasps are unusual in their practice of altruism in which non-reproductive individuals work for the benefit of the colony. This occurs because all individuals in a colony are closely related. Within a colony there is a caste system that is dominated by the queen who is the only reproductive female in the colony. Subordinate to the queen are the workers (daughters) and drones (sons). Like the queen, drones solely serve reproductive roles. The workers are responsible for the rest of the labor. Workers specialize in the performance of different tasks. There are workers who are responsible for foraging for food, providing shelter, defending the colony, and caring for the colony's brood which consists of the queen's offspring.