In early 2020, fear of an invasive hornet species unofficially known as “murder hornet” or “Asian giant hornet” collided with growing anti-Asian hate and xenophobia in the United States, creating concerns around the insect’s name. Nearly two years later, the field of entomology may be one step closer to giving the species a new name that has less potential to do harm.
Dr. Chris Looney has been contemplating how we refer to the insect ever since public concerns first arose. North American entomologists like himself had been on the lookout for the hornet, which threatens both commercial honeybees and native pollinators and plants. But public interest exploded in early 2020 after reports in the New York Times of a “murder hornet” from Asia swept across the internet on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic.
The term “Asian,” of course, isn’t in itself bigoted. But Looney and others noticed that the context in which it evolved created problems. “We have people that either get turned off by [these names] or use them as a reason to be xenophobic,” says Looney, who works at the Washington State Department of Agriculture and was one of the first people to study and manage the insect, whose scientific name is Vespa mandarinia, after it was detected in the U.S.
He also noticed the name was creating confusion within his field: There are other hornets with similar names, like the Asian hornet, which is invasive in Europe.