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As if Arkansas didn't have enough insects already, a large, imported hornet recently moved into the state.
The European hornet has begun breeding in the Arkansas Ozarks, said Jeff Barnes, curator of the University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum.
Barnes, a taxonomist for the U of A Division of Agriculture, said many callers are alarmed by the hornet's robust size and sometimes distressing behavior. With females up to nearly 1.5 inches long, it dwarfs the common Arkansas yellowjacket.
Although not aggressive, they will defend the colony with painful stings when a nest is threatened. Barnes said one study showed that allergic individuals have three times the risk of having a dangerous allergic reaction to a European hornet sting than they would have from a honeybee or yellowjacket sting.
The hornet normally flies during daylight, but in humid, windless weather, workers may fly at night and are attracted to windows of lighted homes, Barnes said.
"We've had reports of European hornets beating themselves against lighted windows with impressive and frightening force," he said. "One lady described the hornets, attracted by a light outside her garage, as hitting the windshield of her car like a hail storm."
The European hornet arrived in North America in New York in the mid-1800s. It crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri in the 1980s. It was identified in Arkansas in 1999, with a specimen collected from a nest in Harrison, Barnes said. Since then, specimens have been collected from Carroll and Washington counties.
"I've seen sufficient specimens and gotten enough calls to believe the species has become pretty well established in Arkansas," he said.
It prefers forest environments to urban or suburban areas and the hornet's contact with humans is usually low, Barnes said. But contact may increase with the growth of new homes in wooded areas of Northwest Arkansas.