Big Wasp I found
 

I knows there are bigger ones about, but this is the biggest one i've ever seen in England.

Excuse the poor picture quality, my phone doesn't do good close-ups

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...t/Image022.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...t/Image027.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...t/Image025.jpg

Quite scary! The sting must have been huge, I didn't kill it, someone else did, but I had to put it out of its misery, its huge head and mouth were still moving and I felt a bit bad (what a softie I am)

My only thought in seeing that is that it's a mutie.

I've never thought myself to have fear of wasps, but that insect is ridiculous. And bigger ones are around? No thank you.

TexanAvenger, thats what I thought - or at least it was a queen. Apparently there are larger asian wasps, Vespa Manadarinia:

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...innit/wasp.jpg

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa_mandarinia

Now thats scary!

Thats no wasp!

What you have there is Boeing F/A-18 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-3488C-028.jpg


Its a big fucker too! I saw something similar at work the other day, damned thing couldn't find any sweet stuff so carried away someones kid instead.

You see those big Asian buggers in the southern US pretty frequently as well...they're an invasive species that got introduced some time ago.

wow, are all the bees around you usually that big!

Aw shit... I live in the southern US.

Now I'm going to have to buy finelink chainmail. Thanks.

Oh my god! I just had to pick myself up off the floor, thats the funniest sh*t i've seen all day! Thanks stevie

They're nothing to worry about too much...they're not known for being overly aggressive, though their venom is powerful enough to be teratoxic ( dissolves tissue ) in humans.

mmm dissolved tissue... nice

Pretty sure thats a European Hornet, hard to tell with the pictures.

Thanks for that info, Dunedan. Another reason to add to my list of why I don't like wasps... :thumbsup:

I can't believe someone let one of those thinks sit on their hand long enough to get a photo of it.

A few years ago i saw a wasp decapitate another wasp and fly away with its head.

I thought that was pretty cool.

I've noticed quite a few impressive bugs in the UK this year. I blame global warming.

Cicada Killer Wasp, perhaps?

http://www.hr-rna.com/RNA/images/Oth...iller%20NL.jpg

http://saltthesandbox.org/cicada_hun...rs_hand_35.jpg

I just learned about these bastards this year, as I'd never even seen one before. Now I'll be chillin' on the deck, listening to a cicada or two, when a fkn huge wasp/Cessna flies by my head and into the small tree by the deck... and suddenly the cicada noise stops. A minute or two later and a dead cicada drops from the tree, and the wasp continues on his merry way.

Those are those giant Asian jobbers. They eat cicadas in China as well.

Do they drug the wasps that they let crawl in their hands for those pictures??

Theres no way i'd let one crawl on me in case it chewed my hand off, or stung me - which according to wikipedia feels like a searing hot 5 inch nail being shot into the flesh

I blame Chernobyl.

I saw a wasp wrestle with a fly in mid-air once. Curious bastard that I am, I caught them in a big glass (they were preoccupied, so it wasn't very difficult!) and watched the wasp rip off leg after leg and then the wings of the fly. And then the wasp sucked the juice out of what was left and I had a glass with bits of dry fly all over it. :lol: Yay for Nature.

But seriously, I'm terribly afraid of wasps because I've never been stung by one, so I don't know how much it'd hurt and my cousin is allergic to wasp stings so maybe I am as well... Winter is my favourite season for a reason. No bugs!

Nope...I blame Bush

Sorry to show my ignorance, but aren't wasps mostly brown/red bodied? I've never seen a wasp that had yellow markings like the OP showed. A week ago when I opened my door I had about 5 wasps (red colored double bodied like demons) sneek in, which I promptly killed with a powerful combo of a fly swatter and RAID.

Am I insectly mistaken?

Wasps over here are pretty much the same colour as bees, but look more evil and obviously have the same traits as wasps - ie can sting over and over as opposed to bees that are more placid and will die if they sting ya

I'd hate to see any demon red ones, i'd run to the hills

Here it is, sir, here it is - http://bugguide.net/node/view/1712

They tend to like to open up a home in my air conditioner, so when it gets cool, they want to come into my room where it's warm, the evil buggers (pun intended)

Wow, thats some freaky stuff. I would like to keep my bug run-ins to the smaller variety thank you very much!