Re: Help id large brown wasp (30mm) with yellow abdomen tip

There just isn't enough detail to the description, but trusting your
general impression that it looked like a hornet, and on the grounds
both of the described colour pattern and the geographical area, your
wasp is very likely to be the Eastern Hornet (Vespa orientalis). I
suggest you type "Vespa orientalis" (within quotation marks,
obviously) into the Google search box, then press the "images" tab and
you may be able to check by yourself.
Vespa orientalis is found in Italy, the Balkans, Greece and its
islands, Turkey and Cyprus, then east of that as far as Tajikistan,
most of India, the Chinese province of Xinjiang and to the south in
the Middle East, the whole of the Arabian Peninsula, Algeria, Libya,
Egypt, Ethiopia and Somalia.

Cheers,
L. Castro



Henry Law <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> OK, folks, it's the Cephalonia holiday once again.
> 
> I want to identify a species of wasp seen near the sea in Greece: it
> was conspicuously large (30mm body length estimate), largely chestnut
> brown in colour, with the tip of the abdomen quite a bright yellow.
> There were yellow areas elsewhere but my notes don't say where.  I saw
> lots of individuals but none of them ever settled long enough to get a
> clear look let alone a photograph.   I'm certain that it was a wasp
> (abdomen joined to the rest of the creature by the thinnest of waists,
> almost a thread) and not a bee, and I think it flew with its legs
> dangling.  
> 
> I've checked out vespa crabro (European Hornet) - too small, not brown
> enough, and there is too much yellow on the abdomen.  Any other
> suggestions?
> 
> I'd welcome pointers to a European Entomology site (with pictures) if
> anyone knows one - I'd not have to bother you all then.
> 
> Henry Law       <><     Manchester, England