''Polistes rubiginosus'' is one of two species of red paper wasp found in the eastern United States (the other being ''

Polistes carolina ''Polistes carolina'' is one of two species of red paper wasp found in the eastern United States (the other being '' Polistes rubiginosus'') and is noted for the finer ridges on its propodeum. It is a social wasp (subfamily Polistinae) in the fam ...

'') and is noted for the coarser ridges on its

propodeum The propodeum or propodium is the first abdominal segment in Apocrita Hymenoptera (wasps, bees and ants). It is fused with the thorax to form the mesosoma. It is a single large sclerite A sclerite (Greek , ', meaning " hard") is a hardened bod ...

. It is a

social wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

(subfamily

Polistinae The Polistinae is a subfamily of eusocial wasps belonging to the family Vespidae. They are closely related to the more familiar wasps (“ yellowjackets” as they are called in North America) and true hornets of the subfamily Vespinae, contai ...

) in the family

Vespidae The Vespidae are a large (nearly 5000 species), diverse, cosmopolitan family of wasps, including nearly all the known eusocial wasps (such as ''Polistes fuscatus'', ''Vespa orientalis'', and ''Vespula germanica'') and many solitary wasps. Each ...

. Until taxonomic revision by Matthias Buck in 2012, ''P. rubiginosus'' was long known under the name ''P. perplexus''. It occurs northernmost from

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

to northern

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, south to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, and from there west to central

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

, Oklahoma,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

and

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

Taxonomy

It was known for a long time as ''P. perplexus'', but in 2012 it was found that the older name ''P. rubiginosus'' actually referred to this species, before that the name ''P. rubiginosus'' was seen as a synonym of ''P. carolina''. ''P. perplexus'' was named in 1872 for six specimens collected in Texas by

Ezra Townsend Cresson Ezra Townsend Cresson, also Ezra Townsend senior (18 June 1838, in Byberry – 19 April 1926, in Swarthmore) was an American entomologist who specialised in the Hymenoptera order of insects. He wrote ''Synopsis of the families and genera of the H ...

(said to have been published in 1870 in error in Karl Vorse Krombein (1979) and Matthias Buck et al. (2008)). Cresson himself does not mention ''P. carolina'', but states that he found ''P. perplexus'' very closely resembling ''P. rubiginosus'', also recognised as a species in his time, and perhaps just to be a male form of this taxon. He also described ''P. generosus'' as a new species in the same paper, from three specimens from Texas, stating that it "may be an extreme variety of ''perplexus''". ''P. generosus'' was published on the next page after ''P. perplexus'', which means that when the two taxa were considered synonym, ''P. perplexus'' had taxonomic priority because it was published first.

Owain Richards Owain Westmacott Richards FRS (31 December 1901 – 10 November 1984) was a British entomologist and ecologist who worked as Professor of Zoology and Applied Entomology, Imperial College, London, based at Silwood Park, and an editor of the ''Jou ...

saw it as a synonym of ''P. carolina'' in 1978, although Wade and Nelson recognised it as a species in a paper published the same year. Thus the

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

was for a long time, and until relatively recently, confused with ''P. carolina''.

Description

The length of the forewing is 18.0–21.5 mm in the female, 17.0–18.0 mm in the male. The body of the creature is almost entirely rusty red, broken by a number of black to dark brown markings. These markings consist of a usually well developed spot around the eyes, this rarely divided into individual spots around each eye, and often a spot in front of pronotal carina. In some cases there are yellow markings on the propodeal valves and tarsi. ''Polistes rubiginosus'' and ''P. carolina'' are the only large red-coloured wasp species in the eastern US. ''P. rubiginosus'' is, however, extremely similar to ''P. carolina'', and can be found in the same regions; the key morphological difference being the malar area (the "cheek") seen from the side, but this works only for the female wasps. This area and the gena are covered in silvery pubescent hairs. ''P. rubiginosus'' is the only ''Polistes'' wasp in the ''P. fuscatus''-group to have this characteristic, all other species have this area bare or almost so. Both sexes of ''P. perplexus'' can also be distinguished from ''P. carolina'' by the coarser transverse ridging of the

Distribution

This species appears to be an

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

of the US. In 1979 Krombein states ''P. perplexus'' occurred from

south to

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

and from there west to southern

, Oklahoma and

. As of 2020 it has been recorded in the states of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, Illinois,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, Oklahoma,

and Texas. The modern known distribution thus exceeds that given in Krombein in all directions because of problems with identification. The species very similar to ''P. carolina'' and may have been under-reported. The specimen from Arizona was collected in 1923 but only properly identified in 2016. The first records from Florida date to 1989. The record from Pennsylvania is from 2005. The distribution largely overlaps with that of ''P. carolina''.

Ecology

The ecology is poorly known because of the aforementioned confusion with ''P. carolina''. It is a

eusocial Eusociality (from Greek εὖ ''eu'' "good" and social), the highest level of organization of sociality, is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping gen ...

insect, building nests in sheltered locations such as in hollow trees, or under wooden platforms and inside storage buildings. Adults have been seen feeding on ''

Euthamia graminifolia ''Euthamia graminifolia'', the grass-leaved goldenrod or flat-top goldentop, is a North American species of plants in the family Asteraceae. It is native to much of Canada (from Newfoundland to British Columbia), and the northern and eastern Uni ...

'' and/or ''E. caroliniana'' in Florida.

Conservation

The IUCN has

not evaluated A not evaluated (NE) species is one which has been categorized under the IUCN Red List of threatened species as not yet having been assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This conservation category is one of nine IUCN th ...

this species'

conservation status The conservation status of a group of organisms (for instance, a species) indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservatio ...

. It has been recorded as present in the following

protected areas Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

: *

Archbold Biological Station The Archbold Biological Station (ABS) is a research institute with a surrounding estate near Lake Placid, Florida, USA. It includes an extensive area of Florida scrub, a scientifically interesting and highly threatened ecosystem. It was establ ...

, Florida, US. * Oxley Nature Center,

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

, Oklahoma, US.

References

rubiginosus Insects described in 1836 Taxa named by Amédée Louis Michel le Peletier {{Vespidae-stub