Australian hornet
The Australian hornet is a big orange wasp with a black patch on its back and a wide black band on its tail end. Even though it is called a hornet, it is really a potter wasp. It builds its nest out of mud.
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Fun facts
It is not a true hornet at all. It belongs to a group called potter wasps or mason wasps.
The female builds big mud nests in sheltered spots, often against walls and buildings.
She hunts caterpillars and spiders around trees and shrubs and seals them inside the nest rooms as food for her larvae.
Its see-through wings are tinted orange with dark tips.
Most asked questions about Australian hornet
?Is the Australian hornet a real hornet?
No. It is a potter wasp that builds its nest from mud.
?How big is an Australian hornet?
It is about 3 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Abispa ephippium
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1775
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Australian hornet (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by James Niland. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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