Vespa mandarinia Smith

Fig. 3

One specimen from the initial North American record of Vespa mandarinia (British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, 2019) was examined morphologically (Fig. 3) in comparison with specimens from Asia deposited in the CNC.

Material examined: CANADA: 1 ♀, British Columbia, Nanaimo, 17.viii.2019, J. Duff, SEM-UBC HYM-14395 (SEM) (Fig. 3A–C) ; JAPAN: 1 ♀, Kyushu, 32°31’25” N, 131°31’38” E, 22.IX.2006, J & R Skevington, CNC DIPTERA3231 (CNC) (Fig. 3D) ; 1 ♀, Kyushu, Seita, Iizuka, Fukuoka, 10–15.x.2013, A., H., & Y. Matsugama (CNC) .

Distribution: India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, eastern Russia, Korea, Japan (Smith-Pardo et al. 2020), Canada (British Columbia) (British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries 2021) and United States of America (Washington State) (Wilson et al. 2020).

Diagnosis: Vespa mandarinia can be distinguished from other Vespa species that have been recorded in Canada by a combination of the following characters: 1) length of gena at least 1.7 × as long as eye at midheight as seen in lateral view (Fig. 3D), 2) metasomal terga 3–6 usually with a wide, orange posterior band, terga 3–5 sometimes completely black, but tergum 6 always predominantly orange (Fig. 3B).