Several days ago, I found "Ashinaga-bachi no su"（アシナガバチの巣）, paper wasp's nest in my house's garden when I got rid of weeds. It had very good size, so I took this photo.Paper wasp is said a kind of "Eki-chu"（益虫） in Japan because it catches caterpillars in fields to eat them. In this case, "Eki" means "beneficial" and "chu" means "insect".
P.S. I have learned this word "paper wasp" just when I would write this article. But, in this case, I think that the Japanese word "Ashinaga-bachi" gets its feature better than the English.
2 comments:
Do paper wasps sting humans? If so, then I can't say that I'd be happy to see them! I'm not very good with bugs anyway.
I'd never heard the word 益虫 before. Thanks for using it. There's no word that means the opposite is there?
Jon-san,
You might have already known about "paper wasp", although I quote the following sentence from Wikipedia.
"Unlike yellowjackets and hornets, which can be very aggressive, polistine paper wasps will generally only attack if they themselves or their nest are threatened."
It may stings you only when you touch it or its nest.
Post a Comment