the.com/paper wasp
chews wood into architecture, then guards it with a face you'll never forget
means A slender, long-legged social wasp that builds an open, umbrella-shaped nest of papery cells, usually hung under eaves or branches.
from The name is plainly descriptive: these wasps make their nests from "paper" — wood fibers they scrape off and chew into a gray pulp, which dries into a stiff, papery comb. "Paper" itself traces back through Latin papyrus to the Greek papuros, the reed-plant the ancients wrote on. "Wasp" is far older and homegrown — Old English wæsp, with relatives across the Germanic languages, possibly rooted in an ancient word meaning "to weave," which would fit a creature famous for building.
- diy paper
- Builds nests from chewed wood pulp and saliva
- face memory
- Recognizes individual nestmates by facial markings
- reusable sting
- Smooth stinger lets it strike repeatedly
- queen squad
- Multiple females may cofound a single nest
- caterpillar hunter
- Feeds chewed insects to its developing larvae
polistes dominula — european paper wasp, invasive across north america since 1970s, builds open-comb umbrella nests
polistes annularis — red paper wasp native to southeastern united states, forms small colonies of 3-30 wasps
ropalidia marginata — indian paper wasp with distinct behavioral flexibility, studied extensively in bangalore for colony dynamics