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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 social wasp colony includes a queen and a number of female workers with varying degrees of sterility relative to the queen. In temperate social species, colonies usually last only one year, dying at the onset of winter. New queens and males (drones) are produced towards the end of the summer, and after mating, the queens hibernate over winter in cracks or other sheltered locations. The nests of most species are constructed out of mud, but polistines and vespines use plant fibers, chewed to form a sort of paper (also true of some stenogastrines). Many species are pollen vectors contributing to the pollination of several plants, being potential or even effective pollinators, while others are notable predators of pest insect species, and a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polistes
''Polistes'' is a cosmopolitan genus of paper wasps and the only genus in the tribe Polistini. Vernacular names for the genus include umbrella wasps, coined by Walter Ebeling in 1975 to distinguish it from other types of paper wasp, in reference to the form of their nests, and umbrella paper wasps. ''Polistes'' is the single largest genus within the family Vespidae, with over 200 recognized species. Their innate preferences for nest-building sites leads them to commonly build nests on human habitation, where they can be very unwelcome; although generally not aggressive, they can be provoked into defending their nests. All species are predatory, and they may consume large numbers of caterpillars, in which respect they are generally considered beneficial. Description As part of subfamily Polistinae, ''Polistes'' wasps are covered in short and inconspicuous hair, have a clypeus with a pointed apex, have a gena that is wide throughout, tergum 1 of the metasoma is almost straig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors. Wasps that are members of the clade Aculeata can sting their prey. The most commonly known wasps, such as yellowjackets and hornets, are in the family Vespidae and are eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen and non-reproducing workers. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual haplodiploid system of sex determination in Hymenoptera, as it makes sisters exceptionally closely related to each other. However, the majority of wasp species are solitary, with each adult female living and breeding independently. Females typically have an oviposit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polistes Fuscatus
''Polistes fuscatus'', whose common name is the dark or northern paper wasp, is widely found in eastern North America, from southern Canada through the southern United States. It often nests around human development. However, it greatly prefers areas in which wood is readily available for use as nest material, therefore they are also found near and in woodlands and savannas.Evans, H. (1963). ''Wasp Farm.'' Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ''P. fuscatus'' is a social wasp that is part of a complex society based around a single dominant foundress along with other cofoundresses and a dominance hierarchy. Taxonomy and phylogeny ''P. fuscatus'' is a part of the order Hymenoptera, the suborder Apocrita, the family of Vespidae, and the subfamily Polistinae, the second-largest subfamily within the Vespidae, of which all are social wasps.Arevalo, Elisabeth, Yong Zhu, James Carpenter, and Joan Strassmann. (2004). The Phylogeny of the Social Wasp Subfamily Polistinae: Evidencefrom Microsat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stenogastrinae
The Stenogastrinae are a subfamily of social wasps included in the family Vespidae. They are sometimes called hover wasps owing to the particular hovering flight of some species. Their morphology and biology present interesting peculiarities. Systematic position The first reports on stenogastrine wasps can be found in a book of Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville, Guérin de Méneville (1831) with the first known species, ''Stenogaster fulgipennis''. Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure treated their systematic position and remarked that these wasps were, in all their characters, entirely intermediate between the two subfamilies of Eumeninae and Vespinae. In 1927, Anton Schulthess-Rechberg, Anton von Schulthess-Rechberg created the new genus ''Parischnogaster'' for some species living in the Oriental region. Dutch entomologist Jacobus van der Vecht created four new genera including species from the entire area of distribution and described tens of new species. He revised the two Pap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
