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Polistes fastidiosus Saussure

(Life: Kingdom: Metazoa (animals); Phylum: Arthropoda; Class: Hexapoda; Order: Hymenoptera; Superfamily: Vespoidea; Family: Vespidae; Subfamily: Polistinae; Genus: Polistes)

Polistes fastidiosus Saussure, 1853. Holotype:  Type Locality: Senegal.
Polistes_fastidiosus_SAM-HYM-A007915_habitus_dorsal Polistes_fastidiosus_SAM-HYM-A007915_habitus_lateral
Polistes_fastidiosus_SAM-HYM-A007915_head_frontal Polistes_fastidiosus_SAM-HYM-A007915_wings
Polistes_fastidiosus_SAM-HYM-A007915_face_frontal Polistes_fastidiosus_SAM-HYM-A007915_labels

Diagnosis

Tarsal claws on mid and hind legs asymmetrical in size (symmetrical in P. marginalis). Colour uniformly reddish-brown, with pale yellow terminal bands on all metasomal (abdominal) segments. Much larger species (13-17 mm in length) than P. marginalis (8-12 mm in length).

Distribution

Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, including Zanzibar, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa (Gauteng, Cape Province), Sudan, Tanzania, Yemen, Zambia.

Biology

Social, constructing communal paper nests comprising a single comb with downward pointing cells. Larvae are fed on chewed-up, soft-bodied insects such as caterpillars. See Polistinae Paper wasp home page for more details.

References

Bequaert, J.C. 1918. A revision of the Vespidae of the Belgian Congo based on the collection of the American Museum Congo Expedition: with a list of Ethiopian diplopterous wasps. Bulletin of the AMNH 39: 1-384.

Carpenter, J. M. & J. Kojima. 1997. Checklist of the species in the subfamily Vespinae (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Natural History Bulletin of Ibaraki University 1: 51-92.

Carpenter, J. M. & M. C. Day. 1988. Nomenclatural notes on Polistinae (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Proceedings of the Washington Entomological Society 90: 323-328.

Carpenter, J. M. & M. Madl. 2009. A catalogue of the Vespidae of the Malagasy Subregion (Insecta, Hymenoptera). Linzer Biologische Beiträge 41 (2): 1871-1935.

Credits

Photographs © Simon van Noort (Iziko Museums of South Africa).

Web author Simon van Noort (Iziko South African Museum)

 

Citation: van Noort, S. 2024. WaspWeb: Hymenoptera of the World. URL: www.waspweb.org (accessed on <day/month/year>).

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