Downy Yellowjacket (Vespula flavopilosa)

Not the best shot, but you can see the "downy" body in this shot really well.

Several of you know how terrified I am of yellow jackets after multiple nasty encounters with them (and having bad reactions to their stings). I'm slowly trying to expose myself to them (with a lot of caution) and learn more about them as well.

This individual was eating the head of a Luna moth corpse on our dirt road (at the edge of a dense mixed forest).

Some interesting information from BugGuide:
"but so far all known data point to the fact that the species is probably not capable of founding their own colonies. Lone queens during spring will search out young colonies of V. maculifrons or V. alascensis to usurp (Social Parasitism). MacDonald et al. (1980) considered V. flavopilosa to be a facultative temporary social parasite of V. maculifrons and V. alascensis (as V. vulgaris) based on five mixed colonies from across the range of the species."