India, Sept. 23 -- Many animals avoid hornets because their stings are dangerous. The Asian giant hornet is the world's largest hornet species, and its sting can cause intense pain and tissue damage. Its venom can also have potentially fatal effects on small vertebrates.

But one small frog in Japan appears not to avoid hornets. Shinji Sugiura, an ecologist at Kobe University, found that the black-spotted pond frog hunts, is stung by, and eats hornets, including the Asian giant hornet, also known as the murder hornet.

Sugiura's 2025 study, published in Ecosphere, examined how black-spotted pond frogs responded to worker hornets from three species: Vespa simillima, V. analis, and V. mandarinia, the Asian giant hornet. For the experiments ...