Red paper wasp

Appearance

Both male and female ''Polistes canadensis'' have a uniformly light to dark mahogany-brown body, sometimes with the head and thorax of a lighter shade. Its rust colored body gives the red paper wasp its common name. Some feature a yellow apical margin of the first tergum as well. The wings are purplish black, and the veins and stigma are either black or reddish brown. ''Polistes canadensis'' is a large-bodied wasp with a wing length ranging from 17.0 to 24.5 mm.

Distribution

The red paper wasp is widely distributed over most of the Neotropical region, ranging from the United States to Argentina. Some locations include, but are not limited to, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, British Guiana, Trinidad, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay.

Behavior

Male red paper wasps engage in two alternative mating tactics: the role of the territorial male and the role of the patroller . Patrollers have a smaller body size than territorial males. Because of their inability to successfully compete against the larger territorial males for territories, these smaller males resort to patrolling. While physical altercations between territorial males and intruding patrollers are rare (Because new nests are often founded near the parent nest by a group of sisters, wasps in neighboring nests tend to be closely related (Mantel test, r=-0.138, p

Habitat

Nests can often be found on human constructions such as buildings, in open habitats on trunks and large limbs of trees, and in sheltered sites such as in caves, sheds, or under peeling bark.

Reproduction

Nests are constructed from plant fibers such as dry grass and dead wood, which, as with other paper wasps, are mixed with saliva to create water-resistant nests made out of papery material. These nests are not covered with an outer envelope and feature hexagonal cells in which eggs are laid and larvae develop. A growing ''Polistes canadensis'' colony often engages in fission into several combs, with an average size of 30.8 cells per comb. A large, mature but still growing colony may have over 800 cells distributed among over 30 combs. Combs on vertical and sloping surfaces hang with the petiole at the upper end. Colonies on tree trunks tend to add secondary combs above or below the first comb resulting in a linear arrangement. In contrast, nests on horizontal surfaces away from edges feature eccentric petioles with secondary combs bordering the central primary comb in a semicircular perimeter. No comb has more than one petiole. Petioles average 9.9 mm in length. When combs reach their final size, adult wasps can often step directly from one comb to another; the average distance between petioles of nearby combs is 2.9 cm. Although rare, adjacent combs sometimes fuse if they make contact.

Defense

Appropriate visual stimuli, such as the movements of nearby large or dark colored objects, can elicit attacks by the red paper wasps, which will fly at the object in alarm, attempting to sting it. An alarmed ''Polistes canadensis'' can release venom onto its nest; the odor of venom will prompt alarm responses in its nestmates, lower their thresholds for attack, and even attract more nestmates to the alarm. Through this chemical means of communicating alarm, the colony is able to rise quickly with its sting chambers open to defend its nest against predators. Because red paper wasps uniquely occupy multiple combs unattached to each other, the chemical alarm substance may have arisen as a necessary adaptation for a more efficient alarm for a sparsely dispersed nest. It is not known whether these red paper wasps can release venom at the nest independent of stinging behavior in order to communicate alarm to nestmates. While these wasps have been seen to open the sting chamber independently of venom release on the nest, the solo release of venom has not been observed. The ''Polistes canadensis'' may open its sting chambers as part of a defensive display or in preparation for stinging.