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Ropalidia puncta
(Fabricius)
(Life:
Kingdom: Metazoa (animals):
Phylum: Arthropoda:
Class: Hexapoda; Order:
Hymenoptera: Superfamily:
Vespoidea: Family:
Vespidae: Genus:
Ropalidia)
Polistes punctum Fabricius, 1804 (type deposited in Museum Kiel; later relocated to Copenhagen)
Icaria distigma
Gerstaecker, 1857.
Holotype:
Type Locality: Inhambane, Mozambique. Synonymy by Polašek et al., 2025.
Icaria cariniscutis Cameron 1910. |
Distribution
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Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe.
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Biology |
Social, constructing communal, vertically
orientated paper nests with horizontally orientated cells. (Polistes
construct horizontally orientated combs with vertically orientated
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 American
Museum of Natural History 39: 1-384.
Polašek O, Onah I, Kehinde T, Rojo V, van Noort S, Carpenter JM. 2025. Revision of the mainland African species of the Old World social wasp genus Ropalidia Guérin-Méneville 1831 (Hymenoptera; Vespidae). Zootaxa 5626 (1): 001–142. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5626.1.1 |
Credits
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Photographs ©
Alan Manson (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40633890)
Map Illustration © Simon van Noort (Iziko Museums of South Africa).
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