Mexican Paper Wasp

Meet Mischocyttarus mexicanus, the Mexican paper wasp. This eusocial species has actually been extensively studied, because individual wasps employ different reproductive strategies over their lifetime, including nesting individually and as a colony, brood parasitism (with unrelated conspecifics) and usurpation. This “reproductive generalization” is unusual behavior. M. mexicanus can be found all over the southern United…

Paper Wasp

Paper wasps (Polistes sp.) are named because of the paper-like nests the queens build. They are members of the family Vespidae. Paper wasps are primitively eusocial, like bees. There are three castes: fertile queens, infertile female workers, and fertile males who do nothing but fertilize the queen. Founding queens sometimes start a nest in a…