The name cuckoo paper wasp refers to a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic ...

species group of brood-parasitic

paper wasp Paper wasps are vespid wasps that gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct nests made of gray or brown papery material. Some types of paper wasps are also sometimes called umbrella wasps, ...

s in the genus ''

Polistes Wasps of the cosmopolitan genus ''Polistes'' (the only genus in the tribe Polistini) are the most familiar of the polistine wasps, and are the most common type of paper wasp in North America. Walter Ebeling coined the vernacular name "umbrel ...

''. This species group contains only four species; ''

Polistes atrimandibularis ''Polistes atrimandibularis'' is one of three obligate social parasites among the ''Polistes'' wasps found in Europe. Of the four social paper wasp parasite species known, it is the smallest. It parasitizes multiple species such as '' P. dominul ...

'', '' P. austroccidentalis'', '' P. maroccanus'', and '' P. semenowi'',Schmid-Egger C, van Achterberg K, Neumeyer R, Morinière J, Schmidt S (2017) Revision of the West Palaearctic ''Polistes'' Latreille, with the descriptions of two species – an integrative approach using morphology and DNA barcodes (Hymenoptera, Vespidae). ZooKeys 713: 53-112. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.713.11335Carpenter, James M. "Phylogeny and Biogeography of ''Polistes''." Natural History and Evolution of Paper-wasps. Ed. Stefano Turillazzi and Mary Jane. West-Eberhard. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. 18-57. Print. all of them obligate social parasites on other ''

'' species. These species, three of which occur in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

, were originally classified as the subgenus ''Sulcopolistes'' by Blüthgen in 1938, but such a group would render the subgenus ''Polistes''

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 ...

, and is therefore no longer formally recognized.Choudary M, Strassmann JE, Queller DC, Turillazzi S, Cervo R. (1994). “Social parasites in polistine wasps are monophyletic: implications for sympatric speciation”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, Biological Sciences 257 (1348): 31–35. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1994.0090 Research using mitochondrial rRNA supports the view that these species descended from a

common ancestor Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...

, and suggests that they are more closely related to ''

Polistes nimpha ''Polistes nimpha'' is a eusocial paper wasp found all over Europe, with particular sightings in Turkey, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia. It is also found in northern Africa, Pakistan, Iran, India (especially in the northern states of Jammu and Kas ...

'' and ''

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 ...

'' (the latter being host to at least three of the four species) than to ''

Polistes gallicus ''Polistes gallicus'' is a species of paper wasp found in various parts of Europe, excluding England, Denmark, and Scandinavia, from warmer climates to cooler regions north of the Alps. Nests of these social insects are created in these various c ...

'' or ''

Polistes biglumis ''Polistes biglumis'' is a species of social wasp within ''Polistes'', the most common genus of paper wasp. It is distinguished mainly by its tendency to reside in montane climates in meadows or alpine areas. Selection pressure from the wasp's en ...

'',Cervo, R. (2006). ''Polistes'' wasps and their social parasites: an overview. ''Ann. Zool. Fennici'', 43, 531-549. thus constituting an example of

Emery's rule In 1909, the entomologist Carlo Emery noted that social parasites among insects (e.g., kleptoparasites) tend to be parasites of species or genera to which they are closely related.Emery, C. "Über den Ursprung der dulotischen, parasitischen und ...

References

{{Brood parasite Polistes Hymenoptera of Europe Parasites of Hymenoptera Parasitic wasps