Fine-backed Red Paper Wasp

Polistes carolina

Polistes carolina is a species of paper wasp.
Red Wasp. N. Texas Polistes Carolina on salvia Fine-backed Red Paper Wasp,Polistes carolina

Appearance

Large Polistes, 32 mm, red all over with dark wings.
Red Paper Wasp (Polistes carolina or rubiginosus) I'm pretty sure these can only be separated by microscopy, so I will leave this at P. carolina. Feel free to delete the ID if this is not acceptable! An individual in its death throes (not sure the reason) on my front porch near an overgrown backyard habitat. https://www.jungledragon.com/image/65562/red_paper_wasp_polistes_carolina_or_rubiginosus.html https://www.jungledragon.com/image/65563/red_paper_wasp_polistes_carolina_or_rubiginosus.html Geotagged,Polistes carolina,Red paper wasp,Summer,United States

Distribution

Canada: recorded for the first time from ON as an adventitious species (not established). Eastern U.S.: NY, PA, OH south to FL, west to IL, KS, AR and eastern TX. Introduced to Bermuda (Richards 1978, Carpenter 1996a).

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/ejournal/bmc_05/72p_carolina.html
http://bugguide.net/node/view/581
Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderHymenoptera
FamilyVespidae
GenusPolistes
SpeciesPolistes carolina
Photographed in
Mexico
United States of America