Latest Paper wasp Stories

New research delivers a sting in the tail for queen wasps. Scientists have sequenced the active parts of the genome – or transcriptome – of primitively eusocial wasps to identify the part of the genome that makes you a queen or a worker. Their work, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, shows that workers have a more active transcriptome than queens. This suggests that in these simple societies, workers may be the 'jack-of-all-trades' in the colony -...

European paper wasps (Polistes dominula) advertise the size of their poison glands to potential predators, finds a new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology. The brighter the color, the larger the poison gland. Aposematism is used by many different animals to warn potential predators that they are poisonous. Usually this takes the form of distinctive coloration or patterns which predators quickly learn to avoid. Paper wasps have conspicuous yellow and...

RESCUE! ® W•H•Y® Trap is the safe, effective and environmentally friendly solution to lure and trap wasps, hornets and yellowjackets Spokane, WA (PRWEB) August 07, 2012 The unusually hot and dry weather throughout the nation is creating a bumper crop of stinging wasps, hornets and yellowjackets. These aggressive insects are busy building colonies, searching for sugary sodas and bombarding backyard barbecues. Experts say now is the time to capture the workers before their...

Researchers at the University of Michigan recently studied paper wasps and their ability to recognize wasp faces. They discovered that the species Polistes fuscatus has a special ability to learn faces and retain what they learn. According to Michael Sheehan, who worked on the research with evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Tibbetts, “Wasps and humans have independently evolved similar and very specialized face-learning mechanisms, despite the fact that everything about the way we see and...

The social lives of ants, wasps and bees have long been a puzzle to scientists. How did complex insect societies — colonies ruled by a queen and many workers — come to be? A new model adds to discontent with old ideas. Social insect society is divided into specialized castes that take on different roles within the nest. Most of the members of a colony – the workers – forego their own chance for reproduction and instead spend their lives raising offspring that aren't their own....

Mucor nidicola species previously unknown to science While some researchers look for new species in such exotic places as the deep sea, tropical regions, or extreme environments, a team headed by Tufts researchers turned their attention towards nests of an invasive paper wasp. What they found was a new species of fungus. Philip T. Starks, associate professor of biology at the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, and doctoral student Anne A. Madden published their discovery...

Future queen or tireless toiler? A paper wasp's destiny may lie in the antennal drumbeats of its caretaker.While feeding their colony's larvae, a paper wasp queen and other dominant females periodically beat their antennae in a rhythmic pattern against the nest chambers, a behavior known as antennal drumming.The drumming behavior is clearly audible even to human listeners and has been observed for decades, prompting numerous hypotheses about its purpose, says Robert Jeanne, a professor...

Social status in paper wasps is established earlier in life than scientists thought, says a study published this month in the journal PLoS ONE.While many social insects have distinct social classes that differ in appearance and are fixed from birth, paper wasp society is more fluid "” all castes look alike, and any female can climb the social ladder and become a queen. Now, molecular analysis reveals that paper wasp social hierarchy is less flexible than it appears. Queens diverge from...

They are both nest-building social insects, but paper wasps and honey bees organize their colonies in very different ways. In a new study, researchers report that despite their differences, these insects rely on the same network of genes to guide their social behavior.The study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.Honey bees and paper wasps are separated by more than 100 million years of evolution, and there are striking differences in how they divvy up the...

Standing out in a crowd is better than blending in, at least if you're a paper wasp in a colony where fights between nest-mates determine social status.That's the conclusion of a study by University of Michigan researchers published online this week in the journal Evolution."It's good to be different, to wear a nametag advertising your identity," said graduate student Michael Sheehan, who collaborated on the research with evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Tibbetts.In earlier...