the.com/wasps
nature's tiny enforcers, building paper empires and forgetting to invite the bees
means Stinging winged insects of the order Hymenoptera, often slender-waisted and capable of stinging repeatedly, many of which build nests from chewed wood pulp.
from From Old English 'wæsp' or 'wæps,' a word that wobbled between those two forms for centuries. It traces back to a Proto-Germanic root (compare German 'Wespe') and ultimately a Proto-Indo-European source that may also lie behind Latin 'vespa' — the same word that, much later, would name the buzzing little Italian scooter. The likely deeper sense is something like 'weaver,' a nod to the way wasps spin and shape their papery nests.
- paper pioneers
- chewed wood into paper millions of years before humans
- pest control
- farmers' unpaid bodyguards against crop-eating insects
- fig conspiracy
- nearly every fig was pollinated by a wasp
- sober only
- autumn wasps get drunk on fermenting fruit
- queen's choice
- females decide each egg's sex at will
yellowjackets of north america — vespula species that aggressively scavenge human food and cause ~500,000 stings annually in the us
tarantula hawk wasp — pepsis species with the most painful insect sting on the schmidt pain index, found across americas and asia
paper wasps of europe — polistes dominula building distinctive open-comb nests on buildings throughout mediterranean and temperate regions