ID this critter?

Stargazer

Stargazer

Surin Legend
I went out this morning to trim off a couple of lower branches to shape a tree. As soon as I cut on one branch with my chainsaw, it felt like I had been hit in the face twice with hot steel slivers. And they kept burning. Not finding any evidence, I went back to cut again. That time, I just caught site of a tiny piece of bark or something falling and hitting me in the face again. Couldn’t really see what, but it hurt a lot! So now I suspected some critter was biting me. The hits were so fast you could not see the critter. I circled around and saw the wasp nest. A few shots of flying insect spray and they fled. The stings were bad enough I felt lucky to not have gotten swarmed on. I’ve been stung by many: yellow jackets, honey bees, bumblebees, etc. but could always see them. These guys are either very fast, or very small or both, and the sting lasts for about 30 minutes. Anyone recognize these buggers? 1792591486924.jpeg
 
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Sounds right. Looked them up. The reaction I got to just three stings made me wary. Apparently, if they swarm on you and you get stung 20 or 30 times, it can kill you. The toxin can cause kidney failure! And they spray you with a scent to track you, and will pursue you for maybe 50-100 meters! I imagine little kids occasionally die from such. I immediately covered up, put on my head net (purchased for hiking in NZ sandfly areas and such), and sprayed them. Oddly, more than some wasps or hornets, with one or two good flying bug spray hits, they completely abandoned the nest and hopefully departed to nest at my neighbors :) And I foolishly thought I was safe here in the Land of Smiles from the venomous critters down under. (Just kidding—apparently these particular Thai paper wasps are not present in Australia.) Aussies have their own nasty wasp varieties somewhat similar.
 
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Stargazer said:
Sounds right. Looked them up. The reaction I got to just three stings made me wary. Apparently, if they swarm on you and you get stung 20 or 30 times, it can kill you. The toxin can cause kidney failure! And they spray you with a scent to track you, and will pursue you for maybe 50-100 meters! I imagine little kids occasionally die from such. I immediately covered up, put on my head net (purchased for hiking in NZ sandfly areas and such), and sprayed them. Oddly, more than some wasps or hornets, with one or two good flying bug spray hits, they completely abandoned the nest and hopefully departed to nest at my neighbors :) And I foolishly thought I was safe here in the Land of Smiles from the venomous critters down under. (Just kidding—apparently these particular Thai paper wasps are not present in Australia.) Aussies have their own nasty wasp varieties somewhat similar.
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This breed of Australian nasties seem to preferer to nest in paperbark trees, and boy, do they deliver a painful sting.
 
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