

The Japanese giant hornet is known as one of the world’s largest and most aggressive insects. It is two inches long with a quarter-inch stinger, can fly at speeds up to 25 mph, and is feared for its powerful, poisonous stings that claim at least 40 lives in Japan every summer. So when a Japanese man made an outlandish claim that he had actually tamed a hornet, no one really believed him.

But Twitter user Mikuru625’s has been trying to convince everyone that he actually has a pet giant hornet by posting photos of it. He said that he had captured the hornet with a butterfly net and held it with tweezers while he removed its sting and poison sacs. He then put a string around its thorax, so that the insect follows him wherever he goes. “He does bite occasionally but it doesn’t hurt,” the owner says.

To prove his claims, Mikuru625 tweeted a series of pictures with the wasp crawling over his fingers and his cell phone. It really does appear harmless, and you can even see the leash that he tied around it. Unless he managed to create a model that looks exactly like a Japanese hornet, this could just be the real thing. Of course, it could also be dead…

Well, the pictures might seem genuine, but Twitter users are beginning to get tired of Mikuru625’s claims. They flatly refuse to believe him: “These hornets are the nastiest, most aggressive insects in the world. Even without a sting they’d try to bite you to death. There’s no way they could be pets,” one person commented.

“I can’t help having a sneaking suspicion that the hornet might actually be dead,” wrote another. That sounds about right, given the deadly nature of the Japanese hornet. When provoked, the hornet uses its stinger to inject venom directly into the nervous system, damaging the tissues of its victims. It is considered to be the one of the most lethal creatures in Japan, second only to humans.

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