A medium-sized to large hornet, workers generally 20 to 28mm. This species is extremely variable in colour and pattern throughout its range. One common colour form from Southeast Asia is usually mainly black with only the tip of the abdomen (the sixth segment) yellow. Another Southeast Asian colour form has a yellow head, with the abdomen being black or brown and with a very thin yellow line on each segment. Specimens from temperate areas usually have yellow heads. In areas where they occur together with Vespa mandarinia, they tend to superficially or even closely resemble the colour form of Vespa mandarinia found in the same place. The three specimens below are, in respective order, colour forms from Southeast Asia, from Russia and from Japan.
This species is one of the most widely distributed hornets. It can be found in temperate areas such as Japan, Russia and Korea, and is also found over much of China and Taiwan, down to tropical regions like Singapore and Indonesia.
Vespa analis is a typical tree-dwelling hornet. Its nests are generally built from six to ten feet above ground. The nest envelope is usually quite dark and sturdy, and has a coarsely imbricate pattern, with large, obvious overlapping circular sections of contrasting colours. In temperate areas, the nest gets only very slightly oval, and the colony size is generally not very large. However, nests in the tropics reach substantial sizes. There is also the same variation seen in nests of Vespa affinis; nests in tropical regions are tapered from the top and get wider further down.
The nest pictured above was found in Singapore in March 2006.
The common colour form in Singapore is the all-black type with a the last abdominal segment yellow. It is stated in many local publications to be fairly common, but in fact is quite rare. On the occasions I have seen it, it usually flies around thick bushes, shrubs or under the cover of trees, but never lands, and disappears into dense undergrowth when approached, making it quite hard to capture. The first specimen I collected alive (a male) is shown below.
This species is generally considered to be one of the least defensive species. However, in Japan, it is responsible for quite a number of attacks, due to its abundance and its fondness for building near human habitation.