The new dominant species

Japan is safe for the most part.

Both Violent and petty crimes are lower than in the United States. If you were to drop a 10,000 Yen note, the person that found it would run you down to return it.

I felt safe in Japan... until I discovered the Asian Giant Hornet.

I had noticed that all Japanese children were mortally afraid of all flying stinging insects. I thought this was just kids being cute. How wrong I was.

I have seen a giant hornet in person on two occasions. The first occasion Caleb and I were eating our lunch outside, enjoying the day, when one of these suckers just buzzed up. We ran for the house and watched as that evil thing walked all over our noodles. After it finally lost interest we dashed back out for the dishes. Don't judge, you would have let him have your noodles too.

(Click to see the full size. I wanted nice, big images)

Might I introduce vespa mandarinia ? Look at that thing! Just look at it. The worlds largest hornet, it delivers one of the most painful stings in the insect kingdom. The venom contains a neurotoxin and can dissolve human flesh (much like a spider bite). These things are so toxic that they cause more human deaths in Japan than all other venomous and non venomous wild animals combined.
Its stinger is 1/4 of an inch long. Its wingspan is 3 inches!
Okay, I can tell that you're not picturing the size of this thing accurately. Here:
I have no idea how they got that hand model to stand still with that abomination on their hand.
These hornets feed on other insects. Two or three of them is all it takes to bring down a honeybee hive of thousands. The honeybee stingers can't pierce the hornets exoskeleton, so the hornet just patiently tears each individual bee in half with its mandibles.
The bees have only one defense against the hornets.
The Bee ball.
(Notice how cute and lovable normal bees look after seeing the giant hell-hornet)

The bees can form a ball around the hornet and vibrate their flight muscles. This overheats the hornet and kills it. The bees can live through higher temperatures and are able to survive the bee ball.

I was discussing this hornet with my mother and brother a few weeks ago. One of us, and I don't even remember which one it was, suggested that these hornets be brought to America to stave off the killer bee population. It didn't even take a full second before we all realized what a very, very bad idea that was.

Oh and remember that bee ball I told you about? Only Japanese bees can do it. European bees can't figure it out. So imagine to yourself, for just a moment, that there were packs of these awful things buzzing around killing all the bees in America.

Oh and here are my sources if you want to know more about the insect that is going to wipe out all other sentient life ( or if you don't believe me):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1025_021025_GiantHornets.html

http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/japanese/hornet.html


Here's a video of a guy talking about the hornet's anatomy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7sJ5TZsJ-Q