The Zethinae are a subfamily of wasps in the family Vespidae, the members of which are referred to as potter wasps owing to their method of nest construction.

Taxonomy

Zethines were formerly included in the subfamily

Eumeninae Potter wasps (or mason wasps), the Eumeninae, are a cosmopolitan wasp group presently treated as a subfamily of Vespidae, but sometimes recognized in the past as a separate family, Eumenidae. Recognition Most eumenine species are black or brown, ...

, also known as potter wasps, until it was recognized that the zethine lineage rendered Eumeninae

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

.PK Piekarski, JM Carpenter, AR Lemmon, E Moriarty-Lemmon, BJ Sharanowski (2018) Phylogenomic Evidence Overturns Current Conceptions of Social Evolution in Wasps (Vespidae). Molecular Biology and Evolution. doi:10.1093/molbev/msy124

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q55638232 Vespidae Potter wasps