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The USDA Agricultural Research Service in Wapato, Washington, will receive 18 live Asian giant hornets so scientists there can develop bait superior to the attractants used this year to lure the invasive wasps into traps. The worker hornets will be the only live specimens sent to researchers from a nest the Washington State Department of Agriculture eradicated Oct. 24 in a dead tree near Blaine in northwest Washington. USDA research entomologist Jackie Serrano said that the service will try to chemically replicate hornet pheromones in time for next year’s trapping season. The department had planned to provide frozen hornets to...

Is it actually Wednesday? I’m not fully sure. The days blend together such that it seems almost like we’ve been transported into that bizarre French Revolution calendar where every week has 10 days or something. I do notice that toilet paper is finally returning to stores in abundance, so much so that I’m thinking of buying a case and TP-ing Gavin Newsom’s house. Who’s in?

Praying may save us from murder hornets after all. Wild video posted online shows a giant Asian hornet finally meeting its match: a brain-gobbling praying mantis. The clip starts with the mantis completely still as its five eyes patiently watch the hornet — an insect that can grow to 2 inches long, is known to kill up to 50 people a year in Japan, and recently arrived in the US. The mantis suddenly springs forward with its long, modified front legs, keeping a vise-like grip on the doomed hornet, which twists and tries to turn its head in feeble attempts...

Just in case you thought giant Asian hornets that can kill people weren’t terrifying enough, a graphic video shows one of the flying terrors stinging a helpless mouse to death. The skin-crawling clip was first posted in 2018, but has since resurfaced amid the murder hornet scourge expected to sweep the US. The nightmarish minute-and-a-half video, which currently boasts almost 500,000 views on YouTube, shows the orange-and-black brawler locked in a deadly embrace with a mouse on the road in an unknown country. The behemoth hornet, which is the world’s largest at over 2 inches long, eventually emerges the victor...

A species of Asian "murder hornets" has appeared in the U.S. as researchers search for ways to eradicate the vicious insects before populations grow. The hornets were discovered near Custer, Wash., last November when beekeeper Ted McFall found carcasses of his bees with decapitated heads, according to an interview with The New York Times. McFall told the Times that he could not imagine what could have killed his bees, later discovering that it was the result of a murder hornet attack. The Asian hornets are reportedly enormous, with queens growing as long as two inches.