Vespa simillima
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
Vespa simillima, the yellow hornet, including the color form known as the Japanese hornet or Japanese yellow hornet (キイロスズメバチ), is a common hornet species in the Eastern Hemisphere. The typical mainland color form (Japanese: ケブカスズメバチ, Korean: 털보말벌, 'hairy wasp') is darker and hairier than the yellow form; it lives in Hokkaido, the Korean Peninsula, Eastern Siberia and China, but is less common elsewhere in Japan, where the yellow color form predominates. It should not be confused with the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia), which has a color form sometimes referred to as the "Japanese giant hornet". While there is a history of recognizing subspecies within many hornets, the most recent taxonomic revision treats all subspecific names in the genus Vespa as synonyms, effectively relegating them to no more than informal names for regional color forms.
V. simillima colonies are all founded by one single foundress, the same with all other species in their genus. The queen performs all tasks, including egg laying, foraging, and nest building, until workers begin to hatch. This can sometimes lead to nests dying out early in the nesting period, if the queen is killed while... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikko National Park | 🇯🇵 Japan |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow Hornet sighting in Nikko National Park on a given day, based on 7 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 22nd most-seen of the 86 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April and August–November
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow Hornet in Nikko National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March, May and July, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Yellow Hornet sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Nikko National Park, in our data
Nikko National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Yellow Hornet sightings: about 20% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow Hornet is recorded against all the insects logged in Nikko National Park (7 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
