Amid Virus Crisis and Spiraling Economy, ‘Murder Hornets’ Arrive in USA

As with any real calamity, there are a great number of Americans who will employ cynicism as a way of coping.

This is a great way of deflating the threat posed by some unstoppable force, and through the use of eye-rolling sarcasm, we feel like we can take a little bit of power back from whatever is out to get us.  This coronavirus pandemic is no different.

How many times have you heard something like this in recent days:

“Well, if it weren’t for this plague or whatever…”

“We can do that….if the apocalypse will hurry up and go away…”

“What’s next?  An asteroid?”

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s not an asteroid that we need to be worried about; It’s “murder hornets”.

A roughly 2-inch long insect known as the “murder hornet” has made its way to the U.S. for the first time ever, researchers said. The Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, has been known to kill up to 50 people a year in Japan, according to The New York Times, and has the potential to devastate U.S. bee populations, which have already been declining.

Susan Cobey, bee breeder with Washington State University’s Department of Entomology, told WSU Insider that the hornets are “like something out of a monster cartoon with this huge yellow-orange face.”

The hornets are usually between 1.5 to 2 inches long, have large yellow-orange heads with prominent eyes, and a black and yellow striped abdomen.

And, just in case you weren’t already having nightmares on account of the coronavirus pandemic, here’s what a murder hornet looks like:

Murder hornet? Are you kidding me? They can kill humans?

We're trapped in a Twilight Zone episode. pic.twitter.com/pmvNRhcsJQ

— Richard EveryWriter (@realeverywriter) May 4, 2020

I don’t know about you, but I’d almost rather take my chances with an asteroid.