hornet at 12 o'clock high

March 30, 2011 4:39 PM

How high can wasps and/or hornets fly?

Conventional means of research have failed me. I need to know how high wasps and/or hornets are likely to fly. Specifically: do they fly high at all (say over a hundred feet off the ground) or do they just keep close to ground level, seeking out sustenance, protecting their hives etc?

posted by philip-random to Science & Nature (4 answers total)

Best answer: Here is one study http://www.inhs.illinois.edu/inhsreports/may-jun95/RWA.html in Colorado which indicated that they found some wasps, mostly parasitic ones, during a sampling experiment a few thousand feet off the ground. I think this question is kind of unanswerable, though, because when you take into account things like dust devils, strong wind events, hurricanes, and so on, which have enormous potential to loft and carry insects, conceivably many different types of insects make it into the upper troposphere at some point in time, and it becomes a question of how rare it is for an insect of X size to be found at X height rather than whether it happens. But without wind and weather, I would guess they wouldn't have any reason to travel higher than a few hundred feet since that's out of their habitat.
posted by crapmatic at 4:58 PM on March 30, 2011

Best answer: How high can they fly? Hard to say, but pretty damn high, especially when you take freak atmospherics into effect.

How high are they likely to fly? Not much past the treetops of wherever they happen to be. Above that there isn't all that much of interest to them. They're looking for food and/or nesting material, not joyrides. Both are found from the ground all the way up to the top of the canopy, but there's really nothing for them in the open air.
posted by valkyryn at 5:09 PM on March 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This is a really awesome video put out by NPR addressing basically this issue...
posted by TomMelee at 5:17 PM on March 30, 2011 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for quick useful answers. You'll be happy to know I just lost an argument.
posted by philip-random at 5:48 PM on March 30, 2011 [2 favorites]