Yellowjacket or yellowjacket is the
common name
In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contra ...
in North America for predatory 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 ...
s of the
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial ...
''
Vespula'' and ''
Dolichovespula''. Members of these genera are known simply as "wasps" in other English-speaking countries. Most of these are black and yellow like the
eastern yellowjacket ''Vespula maculifrons'' and the aerial yellowjacket ''
Dolichovespula arenaria''; some are black and white like the
bald-faced hornet
''Dolichovespula maculata'' is a species of wasp in the genus ''Dolichovespula'' and a member of the Eusociality, eusocial, cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan family Vespidae. It is known by many colloquial names, primarily bald-faced horn ...
, ''Dolichovespula maculata''. Others may have the
abdomen
The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the tors ...
background color red instead of black. They can be identified by their distinctive markings, their occurrence only in colonies, and a characteristic, rapid, side-to-side flight pattern prior to landing. All females are capable of
stinging
Sting may refer to:
* Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger
* Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself
Fictional characters and entities
* Sting (Middle-earth ...
. Yellowjackets are important predators of pest insects.
Identification
Yellowjackets may be confused with other wasps, such as
hornet
Hornets (insects in the genus ''Vespa'') are the largest of the eusocial wasps, and are similar in appearance to their close relatives yellowjackets. Some species can reach up to in length. They are distinguished from other vespine wasps by the ...
s and
paper wasps such as ''
Polistes dominula
The European paper wasp (''Polistes dominula'') is one of the most common and well-known species of social wasps in the genus '' Polistes''. Its diet is more diverse than those of most ''Polistes'' species—many genera of insects versus mainly ...
''. A typical yellowjacket worker is about long, with alternating bands on the abdomen; the queen is larger, about long (the different patterns on their abdomens help separate various species).
Yellowjackets are sometimes mistakenly called "
bee
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...
s" (as in "meat bees"), given that they are similar in size and general coloration to
honey bee
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmop ...
s, but yellowjackets are actually wasps. In contrast to honey bees, yellowjackets have yellow or white markings, are not covered with tan-brown dense hair on their bodies, and do not have the flattened, hairy pollen-carrying hind legs characteristic of honey bees (although they are capable of pollination).
Yellowjackets have lance-like stingers with small barbs, and typically sting repeatedly,
[ though occasionally a stinger becomes lodged and pulls free of the wasp's body; the ]venom
Venom or zootoxin is a type of toxin produced by an animal that is actively delivered through a wound by means of a bite, sting, or similar action. The toxin is delivered through a specially evolved ''venom apparatus'', such as fangs or a ...
, like most bee
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...
and wasp venoms, is primarily dangerous to only those humans who are allergic or are stung many times. All species have yellow or white on their faces. Their mouthparts are well-developed with strong mandibles for capturing and chewing insects, with probosces for sucking nectar, fruit, and other juices. Yellowjackets build nests in trees, shrubs, or in protected places such as inside man-made structures, or in soil cavities, tree stumps, mouse burrows, etc. They build them from wood fiber they chew into a paper-like pulp. Many other insects exhibit protective mimicry of aggressive, stinging yellowjackets; in addition to numerous bee
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...
s and 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 ...
s (Müllerian mimicry
Müllerian mimicry is a natural phenomenon in which two or more well-defended species, often foul-tasting and sharing common predators, have come to mimicry, mimic each other's honest signal, honest aposematism, warning signals, to their mutuali ...
), the list includes some flies
Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...
, moth
Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...
s, and beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
s (Batesian mimicry
Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work on bu ...
).
Yellowjackets' closest relatives, the hornets, closely resemble them but have larger heads, seen especially in the large distance from the eyes to the back of the head.[
]
Life cycle and habits
Yellowjackets are social hunters living in colonies containing workers, queens, and males (drones). Colonies are annual with only inseminated queens overwintering. Fertilized queens are found in protected places such as in hollow logs, stumps, under bark, leaf litter, soil cavities, and man-made structures. Queens emerge during the warm days of late spring or early summer, select a nest site, and build a small paper nest in which they lay eggs. After eggs hatch from the 30 to 50 brood cells, the queen feeds the young larvae for about 18 to 20 days. Larvae
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
T ...
pupate
A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...
, then emerge later as small, infertile females called workers. Workers in the colony take over caring for the larvae, feeding them with chewed-up meat or fruit. By midsummer, the first adult workers emerge and assume the tasks of nest expansion, foraging for food, care of the queen and larvae, and colony defense.
From this time until her death in the autumn, the queen remains inside the nest, laying eggs. The colony then expands rapidly, reaching a maximum size of 4,000–5,000 workers and a nest of 10,000–15,000 cells in late summer. The species ''V. squamosa'', in the southern part of its range, may build much larger perennial colonies populated by dozens of queens, tens of thousands of workers, and hundreds of thousands of cells. At peak size, reproductive cells are built with new males and queens produced. Adult reproductives remain in the nest fed by the workers. New queens build up fat reserves to overwinter. Adult reproductives leave the parent colony to mate. After mating, males quickly die, while fertilized queens seek protected places to overwinter. Parent colony workers dwindle, usually leaving the nest to die, as does the founding queen. Abandoned nests rapidly decompose and disintegrate during the winter. They can persist as long as they are kept dry, but are rarely used again. In the spring, the cycle is repeated; weather in the spring is the most important factor in colony establishment.
The adult yellowjacket diet consists primarily of sugars and carbohydrates
In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or may ...
, such as fruits, flower nectar, and tree sap. Larvae feed on proteins derived from insects, meats, and fish. Workers collect, chew, and condition such foods before feeding them to the larvae. Many of the insects collected by the workers are considered pest species, making the yellowjacket beneficial to agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peop ...
. Larvae, in return, secrete a sugary substance for workers to eat; this exchange is a form of trophallaxis. As insect sources of food diminish in late summer, larvae produce less for workers to eat. Foraging workers pursue sources of sugar outside the nest including ripe fruits and human garbage.
Notable species
*European yellowjackets, the German wasp (''Vespula germanica
''Vespula germanica'', the European wasp, German wasp, or German yellowjacket, is a species of wasp found in much of the Northern Hemisphere, native to Europe, Northern Africa, and temperate Asia. It has spread and become well-established in ma ...
''), and the common wasp ('' Vespula vulgaris'') were originally native to Europe, but are now established in southern Africa, New Zealand, and eastern Australia
*The North American yellowjacket ('' Vespula alascensis''), eastern yellowjacket (''Vespula maculifrons''), western yellowjacket ('' Vespula pensylvanica''), and prairie yellowjacket ('' Vespula atropilosa'') are native to North America.
* Southern yellowjacket (''Vespula squamosa'')
*Bald-faced hornet
''Dolichovespula maculata'' is a species of wasp in the genus ''Dolichovespula'' and a member of the Eusociality, eusocial, cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan family Vespidae. It is known by many colloquial names, primarily bald-faced horn ...
s (''Dolichovespula maculata'') belong among the yellowjackets rather than the true hornets. They are not usually called "yellowjackets" because of their ivory-on-black coloration.
* Aerial yellowjacket (''Dolichovespula arenaria'')
* Tree wasp (''Dolichovespula sylvestris'')
Nest
''Dolichovespula'' species such as the aerial yellowjacket, ''D. arenaria'', and the bald-faced hornet
''Dolichovespula maculata'' is a species of wasp in the genus ''Dolichovespula'' and a member of the Eusociality, eusocial, cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan family Vespidae. It is known by many colloquial names, primarily bald-faced horn ...
, tend to create exposed aerial nests. This feature is shared with some true hornets, which has led to some naming confusion.
''Vespula'' species, in contrast, build concealed nests, usually underground.
Yellowjacket nests usually last for only one season, dying off in winter. The nest is started by a single queen, called the "foundress". Typically, a nest can reach the size of a basketball by the end of a season. In parts of Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, and southern coastal areas of the United States, the winters are mild enough to allow nest overwintering. Nests that survive multiple seasons become massive and often possess multiple egg-laying queens.
In the United States
The German yellowjacket (''V. germanica'') first appeared in Ohio in 1975, and has now become the dominant species over the eastern yellowjacket. It is bold and aggressive and can sting repeatedly and painfully. It will mark aggressors and pursue them. It is often confused with ''Polistes dominula
The European paper wasp (''Polistes dominula'') is one of the most common and well-known species of social wasps in the genus '' Polistes''. Its diet is more diverse than those of most ''Polistes'' species—many genera of insects versus mainly ...
'', an invasive species in the United States, due to their very similar pattern. The German yellowjacket builds its nests in cavities—not necessarily underground—with the peak worker population in temperate areas between 1000 and 3000 individuals between May and August. Each colony produces several thousand new reproductives after this point through November.
The eastern yellowjacket builds its nests underground, also with the peak worker population between 1000 and 3000 individuals, similar to the German yellowjacket. Nests are built entirely of wood fiber and are completely enclosed except for a small entrance at the bottom. The color of the paper is highly dependent on the source of the wood fibers used. The nests contain multiple, horizontal tiers of combs within. Larvae hang within the combs.
In the southeastern United States, where southern yellowjacket ('' Vespula squamosa'') nests may persist through the winter, colony sizes of this species may reach 100,000 adult wasps.[ The same kind of nest expansion has occurred in ]Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...
with the invasive western yellowjacket (''V. pensylvanica'').
In popular culture
The yellowjacket's most visible place in US sporting culture is as a mascot
A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fic ...
, most famously with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets is the name used for all of the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), located in Atlanta, Georgia. The teams have also been nicknamed the Ramblin' Wreck ...
, represented by the mascot Buzz
Buzz may refer to:
People
*Buzz (nickname), a list of people
*J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner (born 1967; aka ''Dr. Buzz''), American forensic psychologist and journalist
Fictional characters
*Buzz, a character in the 1987 American comedy movie '' Reve ...
. Other college and university examples include Allen University
Allen University is a private historically black university in Columbia, South Carolina. It has more than 600 students and still serves a predominantly Black constituency. The campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Allen ...
, the American International College, Baldwin-Wallace University
Baldwin Wallace University (BW) is a private university in Berea, Ohio. It was founded in 1845 as Baldwin Institute by Methodist businessman John Baldwin. The school merged with nearby German Wallace College in 1913 to become Baldwin-Wallace C ...
, Black Hills State University, Cedarville University, Defiance College
Defiance College is a private college located in Defiance, Ohio and affiliated with the United Church of Christ. The campus includes eighteen buildings and access to the Thoreau Wildlife Sanctuary.
History
The college began as Defiance Female ...
, Graceland University
Graceland University is a private university with campuses in Lamoni, Iowa, and Independence, Missouri. The university offers degree completion and master's degree programs at satellite campuses in Centerville and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Trent ...
, Howard Payne University
Howard Payne University is a Private university, private Baptist university in Brownwood, Texas. It is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Howard Payne College was founded by Reverend Noah T. Byers and Dr. John David Robnett ...
, LeTourneau University, Montana State University Billings
Montana State University Billings (or MSU Billings) is a public university in Billings, Montana. It is the state's third largest university. Its campus is located on 110 acres in downtown Billings. Formerly Eastern Montana Normal School at its ...
, Northern Vermont University-Lyndon, Randolph-Macon College, University of Rochester
The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...
, University of Wisconsin–Superior
The University of Wisconsin–Superior (UW–Superior or UWS) is a public liberal arts university in Superior, Wisconsin. UW–Superior grants associate, bachelor's, master's and specialist's degrees. The university enrolls 2,559 undergraduates ...
, West Virginia State University
West Virginia State University (WVSU) is a public historically black, land-grant university in Institute, West Virginia. Founded in 1891 as the West Virginia Colored Institute, it is one of the original 19 land-grant colleges and universities ...
, and Waynesburg University.
Though not specified by the team, the mascot of the Columbus Blue Jackets
The Columbus Blue Jackets (often simply referred to as the Jackets) are a professional ice hockey team based in Columbus, Ohio. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conferenc ...
, named "Stinger," closely resembles a yellowjacket. In the years since its original yellow incarnation, the mascot's color has been changed to light green, seemingly combining the real insect's yellow and the team's blue.
In the United Kingdom the Rugby Union team Wasps traditionally use a yellowjacket as their club emblem.
Note that yellowjacket is often spelled as two words (yellow jacket) in popular culture and even in some dictionaries. The proper entomological spelling, according to the Entomological Society of America
The Entomological Society of America (ESA) was founded in 1889 and today has more than 7,000 members, including educators, extension personnel, consultants, students, researchers, and scientists from agricultural departments, health agencies, ...
, is as a single word (yellowjacket).
References
External links
"Yellowjackets and Hornets of Florida"
on the UF / IFAS IFAS may refer:
* Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
* Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge, a sewage treatment process
* International French adjectival system
In rock climbing, mountaineering, and other climbing disciplines, clim ...
Featured Creatures Web site
Successful Removal of German Yellow Jackets by Toxic Baiting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yellowjacket
Vespidae
Insect common names
Predators