DM
Tokyo
Twitter user Mikuru625 has posted pictures of himself holding the potentially lethal giant Japanese giant hornet.
He claims that after catching the famously aggressive insect, which kills 40 people on average every summer in its native Japan, he used tweezers to remove its sting and poison sacks, rendering it harmless.
Mikuru625 then tied string around the hornet’s thorax and now takes it everywhere he goes. ‘He does bite occasionally but it doesn’t really hurt,’ he said. However several sceptics have pointed out that the hostile nature of the giant hornet would make it impossible to keep it captive in this manner. One Twitter user said: ‘Thee hornets are the nastiest, most aggressive insects in the world. Even without a sting they’d try to sting you or bite you to death.’ Others have claimed that the hornet is actually dead and manipulated into position for the photos. Japanese giant hornets are the second most lethal animal in Japan, after humans, and being stung by one often causes people to go into anaphylactic shock.