A TERRIFIED man feared a giant Asian hornet as big as a humming bird was going to sting him when it flew in through the window of his home.

Jonathan Bruns was shocked to find the giant insect, bigger than a 2p coin, buzzing about his home in Acton Hall, just off the A449 north of Worcester. The jury is out on whether the creature is the Asian hornet which arrived in France in 2005. However, there has yet to be any confirmed sightings of Asian hornets in the UK. If confirmed, this would be the first sighting. Concern has been raised about the potential impact of the Asian hornet on native species in the UK as they are highly predatory and attack and kill honey bees.

The 36-year-old aerospace manufacturing quality auditor captured the large insect with partner Colin Meldrum at about 7pm on Thursday night. Mr Bruns has been stung multiple times by hornets while growing up in Washington state in the USA as a teenager, describing the experience as 'very, very painful'. They trapped the insect in a tupperware box, poured water on it and drowned it.

He said: "I was afraid. This is twice the size of the biggest hornet we have ever seen and looked exactly like an Asian hornet. I was talking to my partner upstairs in the hallway and I was looking over at him when behind his head flew this large thing. I grabbed him and pulled him away. We both went 'Oh my gosh!' We both got nervous and my partner said 'that looks dangerous'.

"Flying, with its legs spread out, it looked as big as a humming bird or a very large humming bird hawk-moth. It would really concern me if we have Asian hornets around here - they are supposedly extremely poisonous.

"We didn't want it burrowing into the wall or building a nest." Your Worcester News was not able to confirm with wildlife experts whether the insect was an Asian hornet at the time we went to press although a representative from the Worcestershire Biological Record Centre at Lower Smite Farm, Hindlip, said 'it doesn't look like the invader to me'.