First Murder Hornet Caught In United States In Washington State

2020 has been a year of crazy surprises and weird events. One of the very worrisome sounding things this year was the arrival of the Murder Hornet in the United States in early May. The Asian giant hornet sounded like some creature from a science fiction movie and Americans freaked out about it, for a few days. Then we didn't hear anything about the murder hornets; no death, no massive swarms, no mentions at all for nearly two months. Many dismissed the scare as propaganda or just another 2020 scare, but that scare is real and the first hornet has been caught in the United States. The Washington State  Department of Agriculture says the hornet was caught near the Canadian border in mid-July but wasn't officially identified until July 29th. Up until that point there had only been five previous sightings of the giant hornet. So, the Murder Hornet scare is back on the table for 2020 but we may have another bug on our side in this fight.

I came across a video online of a praying mantis vs Asian giant hornet and the mantis seems to be the honey badger of the insects, because they just don't care. The praying mantis grabs the two inch hornet and proceeds to eat the entire head. It is pretty gross but it may be our only hope if 2020 continues to throw curve-balls at us.

I have always thought the praying mantis was a creepy bug and this video only reassures my feelings and actually makes me wonder if we should start to worry more about the American praying mantis?