Real Lesser Banded Hornet - Vespa affinis  specimen encased in indestructible, transparent lucite keychain. Safe, authentic and completely unbreakable product put real Hornet right at your fingertips!

Length of the Hornet body is 2.8 cm (1.1 inch).

Size of the lucite block is 3.5x2.1x1.2 cm (1.6x0.8x0.5 inch).

Weight of the key ring is 15 g and 30 g with packing box.

It is a beautiful keychain and is also a very good collectible item for every body. 

This is a handmade real animal specimen craft. Each one will be a bit different (specimen size, color and posture) even in the same production batch.
The pictures in the listing are just for reference as we are selling multiple pieces with same pictures.

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Lesser Banded Hornet - Vespa affinis

Order: Hymenoptera  Family: Vespidae  Genus: Vespa

This is a small to medium-sized hornet, with queens reaching 30mm, males 26mm and workers being an average of 22 to 25mm. There are several geographical forms or subspecies; the ones found in South China are generally mainly black, with the first two abdominal segments being a deep yellow, forming a conspicuous band. The sides of the head and thorax show some reddish brown. On the other hand, specimens from Southeast Asian regions such as Singapore are fully black, without reddish brown markings, and the abdominal band is a brilliant orange.

This species is widespread throughout Asia. It can frequently be seen foraging close to the ground in grassy areas, forest and wasteland. This species seems to prey heavily on flies which can be pests. It can frequently be found on the beach, staying near rotting mussels which smell bad and attract flies. Initially, I assumed they were taking the mussel meat to feed their larvae, but it turned out that they were simply creeping into the mussel shells and hiding there to ambush the flies! They also love the nectar from flowers of the coconut tree, and often, after drinking their fill, conveniently grab a honeybee from a nearby flower and head for home. Besides these, they will also attack any small insect they can overpower. They will also collect meat from freshly dead insects.

The nest of Vespa affinis is usually high in a tree, although on occasion they build lower. It is generally elongated, and looks similar to the nest of Vespa velutina. However, it can be distinguished by having a more imbricate nest envelope (many individual overlapping circular layers of papering, as opposed to running vertically lengthwise), and the nest has a tough, durable appearance. It can often reach 60 cm in length in sub-tropical areas, and even larger in true tropical regions. Also, there is an interesting variation of nest shapes; in tropical areas, the top of the nest is very narrow but tapers out downwards, forming a "pear-shaped" or "drop-shaped" structure. Nests in subtropical regions are simply oval with a rounded top. In South China, this species has an average life cycle; the queens awake from hibernation in April, and the colony usually dies only in late November. In fully tropical areas, it seems present all the time. This species is known for multiple queen founding or even swarm founding (known in scientific terms as pleometrosis) in tropical regions, where several queens or multiple queens with a swarm of workers from the old colony start a new nest together.