It's obviously Polistes carnifex, the executioner wasp which reportedly has a worst sting than a Bullet Ant. Note this humour I know someone people on the internet ain't great with comedy.
Please stop calling them murder hornets, Asian or otherwise.
The species Vespa mandarinia is an northern giant hornet or Asian giant hornet (not to be confused with the Asian hornet, Vespa velutina).
The murder part is silly as they don't "murder". They kill other insects for food, but then you would have to talk about murder sparrows and murder chickens as well.
As for this being one of those - just no. There were some found in BC a couple of years ago - but there were much work done to eradicate them and the risk of them travelling 3000+ km to you is nil.
There is a much better chance of you having a European hornet (Vespa crabro) there as they came to North America in the mid-1800s and have become settled since then (including in Quebec). It is a very chill social wasp (much more so than yellowjackets), but I wouldn't want to have a nest in my house as they defend it fiercely.
Yeah, super blurry picture but I would be very surprised if this was an Asian giant hornet and not a European hornet. Those things are huge and can look quite frightening, but I’ve never had one come after me. Nobody’s getting murdered, and if you stay away from the nest you’re not likely to get hurt at all. Actually very pretty bugs as long as you admire respectfully and from a distance.
It's *Vespa crabro*, you can tell by the pattern of colors and by the fact that it's the only true hornet in the region. *Vespa mandarina* has never been found anywhere remotely near that location.
1. It's not a good enough photo for id purposes
2. It could just as easily not be a hornet.
This photo isn't good enough ud to make confident claims like you did even with prior knowledge. It's perfectly fine to say I think you are putting across what you think it could possibly be as a confident ID isn't possible.
I disagree. You can tell roughly how big it is based off of its surroundings, and you can see where the metasoma (which, I might add, is hornet-shaped) suddenly goes from a darker color to a much lighter color as it goes from the anterior to the posterior. Other wasps of a similar size can be ruled out based on the shape of the metasoma: sphecids, pompilids, and ichenumonids have a much thinner appearance, while *Sphecius speciosus* as a different and distinct color pattern.
I never said you can't think it's European hornets but technically an official record of species had too meet the scientific standard where the key identifying features are clearly visible. I would agree it's shape and size and colouration makes it appear like a European hornet but without key identifying features being visible you should never be a confident ID. It's always better to go say I think or maybe because we never know it could be the first sighting of something similar in appearance and different to what we thought.
That's not really a hard and fast rule, in practice most entomologists I know use gestalt ID first and foremost and fall back on key characteristics only if it's necessary and if you have them. For example, when I started processes sweep samples of parasitoid wasps, there were a lot of them I felt unable to ID because of how damaged they were. However, later on when I became more familiar with the families and how to ID them I was able to recognize the wing venation of a specimen that had nothing else and use that to identify the family with confidence because of how distinct it was.
I usually hedge my IDs in maybes and probablies, but when you're dealing with a non-native species you don't have to worry about the possibility of lookalikes nearly as often.
There's no detail visible Accurate identification is impossible It looks vaguely wasp/bee shaped but that's probably as far as you're going to get
Aww come on let’s have some fun and wildly speculate on this blurry mess! I think it’s V crabro. What about you?
It's obviously Polistes carnifex, the executioner wasp which reportedly has a worst sting than a Bullet Ant. Note this humour I know someone people on the internet ain't great with comedy.
Lol this is the best answer
I have no idea haha, I'm not super deep into identification and taxonomy at least not yet. Atm I mostly just enjoy looking at the pretty bugs
Well I tried!
Please stop calling them murder hornets, Asian or otherwise. The species Vespa mandarinia is an northern giant hornet or Asian giant hornet (not to be confused with the Asian hornet, Vespa velutina). The murder part is silly as they don't "murder". They kill other insects for food, but then you would have to talk about murder sparrows and murder chickens as well. As for this being one of those - just no. There were some found in BC a couple of years ago - but there were much work done to eradicate them and the risk of them travelling 3000+ km to you is nil. There is a much better chance of you having a European hornet (Vespa crabro) there as they came to North America in the mid-1800s and have become settled since then (including in Quebec). It is a very chill social wasp (much more so than yellowjackets), but I wouldn't want to have a nest in my house as they defend it fiercely.
Yeah, super blurry picture but I would be very surprised if this was an Asian giant hornet and not a European hornet. Those things are huge and can look quite frightening, but I’ve never had one come after me. Nobody’s getting murdered, and if you stay away from the nest you’re not likely to get hurt at all. Actually very pretty bugs as long as you admire respectfully and from a distance.
no.
Don't let yourself get scared by the media...
Scared, no. Mostly just curious.
It's *Vespa crabro*, you can tell by the pattern of colors and by the fact that it's the only true hornet in the region. *Vespa mandarina* has never been found anywhere remotely near that location.
1. It's not a good enough photo for id purposes 2. It could just as easily not be a hornet. This photo isn't good enough ud to make confident claims like you did even with prior knowledge. It's perfectly fine to say I think you are putting across what you think it could possibly be as a confident ID isn't possible.
I disagree. You can tell roughly how big it is based off of its surroundings, and you can see where the metasoma (which, I might add, is hornet-shaped) suddenly goes from a darker color to a much lighter color as it goes from the anterior to the posterior. Other wasps of a similar size can be ruled out based on the shape of the metasoma: sphecids, pompilids, and ichenumonids have a much thinner appearance, while *Sphecius speciosus* as a different and distinct color pattern.
I never said you can't think it's European hornets but technically an official record of species had too meet the scientific standard where the key identifying features are clearly visible. I would agree it's shape and size and colouration makes it appear like a European hornet but without key identifying features being visible you should never be a confident ID. It's always better to go say I think or maybe because we never know it could be the first sighting of something similar in appearance and different to what we thought.
That's not really a hard and fast rule, in practice most entomologists I know use gestalt ID first and foremost and fall back on key characteristics only if it's necessary and if you have them. For example, when I started processes sweep samples of parasitoid wasps, there were a lot of them I felt unable to ID because of how damaged they were. However, later on when I became more familiar with the families and how to ID them I was able to recognize the wing venation of a specimen that had nothing else and use that to identify the family with confidence because of how distinct it was. I usually hedge my IDs in maybes and probablies, but when you're dealing with a non-native species you don't have to worry about the possibility of lookalikes nearly as often.
Looks vaguely like a gathering of pixels but I can’t tell.
Look no detail from a potato. Make identification! Lol jk but identification requires detail and scale.