Broadly categorised into hornets, paper wasps, yellow jackets and hover wasps (a few), wasps are not just mad stingers looking to sting anything that comes their way, but are skilled architects, hunters and complex communicators.
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From the paper-thin nests of Ropalidia marginata (Indian paper wasp) to the massive underground colonies of Vespa mandarinia (Asian giant hornet), and the tree-hung fortresses of Vespa affinis (lesser banded hornet), their architectural marvels are as diverse as their behaviors.
Social wasps belong exclusively to the family Vespidae, which includes an incredible variety of species in the subfamilies Polistinae, Stenogastrinae and Vespinae. With over 1000 species, their diversity spans across the tropics to the temperate zones.
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Found in nearly every corner of the world, social wasps are among nature’s most intriguing insects: fierce, intelligent and highly diverse.
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Femi E. Benny
PhD student, University College London, UK
Laura Miller
PhD student, Drexel University, USA
WRITTEN BY
​What’s the point of wasps?
A highly relevant question and one that deserves a detailed answer, especially given the intense public dislike for wasps, with social wasps often topping the list of "most hated insects” (Sumner et al., 2018).
But here’s the twist: social wasps are relentless eco-warriors who do their part in maintaining the ecosystem balance. They play a multitude of ecological roles including pest control, population regulation, pollination, nutrient cycling/decomposition and seed dispersal.
These wasps don’t just sting; they hunt! Now, what do they hunt? Mostly the larvae of agricultural pests (Prezoto et al., 2019). This makes them a farmer’s best friend, though they are yet to be acknowledged!
Is that all?
No! Social wasps are also efficient pollinators, visiting flowers for nectar and carrying pollen along, thus aiding in pollination. Some species like Vespula pensylvannica (Western yellowjacket) even help with nutrient recycling, cleaning up the ecosystem by feeding on decaying matter (Wilson et al., 2009). For several indigenous communities across the world and especially in India, social wasps are a delicacy, and the collection and sale of these wasps are an important alternative livelihood option.
​We associate wasps with their painful sting and stay clear of their nests so we can avoid being the recipients of their defensive attack. Like honeybees, they have a queen and female workers that help the queen. Lucky for us, it is easy to identify the beautiful, complex and diverse nests built by these wasps (Sumner & Cini, 2021; Yamane & Yamane, 2021). Wasps create hexagonal combs for brood to develop, like “honeycomb” (but lacking the honey). Hornets and yellowjackets make horizontal combs and surround the whole nest with a brittle envelope with small entrances for adults to leave and re-enter through (Yamane & Yamane, 2021). Polistes paper wasps, however, have open nests, and their comb is visible (Sumner & Cini, 2021). Polistes workers increase the diameter of these nests as the queen produces more offspring.
Complex societies
​Wasp larvae are very fatty, and their nests hold many larvae at one time, making them a target for predators. These nests are guarded by adult colony members who use their stingers to attack.
Within these colonies the queen is the sole reproducer and the workers are sterile. The queen’s status is maintained through different mechanisms. Hornet queens produce a pheromone that prevents workers from developing their reproductive organs (Yamane & Yamane, 2021). Workers groom the queen and then groom other workers which spread the pheromone.
Unlike hornets and yellow jackets, paper wasp workers can replace the queen. The colonies are therefore in a constant state of competition (Sumner & Sini, 2021). Queens maintain their status as top of the hierarchy through aggressiveness towards the workers (Pardi, 1948; Dani et al., 1992). These workers take on the brunt of brood care, food provisioning and colony defense, all while typically being blocked from having their own offspring (Reeve, 1991; Matsuura, 1991). It seems like an unfair trade! So, how could social wasps possibly have evolved? ​​
Social evolution
It is theorized that certain characteristics are present in insects that increase the odds of developing social behavior.
One is the presence of a guarded nest site (Plowes, 2010). The second is that individuals, prior to social evolution, have characteristics that make the switch to social living more likely (da Silva, 2021). Many solitary wasps perform mass provisioning: the mother wasp supplies a large host to feed her offspring and provides no further care (Field, 2005). However, some solitary wasps perform progressive provisioning, in which the mothers continuously supply food to offspring throughout their development (Field, 2005). Progressive provisioning is present in all social wasps, indicating it may likely be a pre-adaptation to sociality in wasps.
​​We can also look at the painful sting we associate with social wasps to understand their evolution. The stinger evolved from the ovipositor (an appendage to lay eggs) and is still present in parasitoid wasps to lay eggs in paralyzed insect hosts (Peters et al., 2017). While most parasitoid wasps lack a stinger, and cannot sting humans, some very much do. The tarantula hawk wasp, famous for having the most painful sting in the world, uses its stinger to paralyze large spiders to feed its offspring and as self-defence (Schmidt, 2004; Detoni et al., 2021)! While these pre-adaptations may provide an answer for how sociality in wasps generally evolved, there is a lot of variation in their social behavior and colony organization.
Book: Encyclopedia of Social Insects, Author: C.K. Starr.
Chapters: Paper Wasps (Polistes), Authors: Sumner, S., & Cini, A. Vespinae, Authors: Yamane, S., & Yamane, S.
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Book: The Evolution of Social Wasps, Author: James Hunt.
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Sumner, S., Law, G., & Cini, A. (2018). Why we love bees and hate wasps. Ecological Entomology, 43(6), 836-845.
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Noort, S. V., & Broad, G. (2024). Wasps of the World: A Guide to Every Family.
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Eaton, E. R. (2021). Wasps: The astonishing diversity of a misunderstood insect. Princeton University Press.
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Sumner, S. (2022). Endless Forms: the Secret World of Wasps. William Collins.
Suggested reading to find out more about wasps
Cited above
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Detoni, M., Feás, X., Jeanne, R. L., Loope, K. J., O’Donnell, S., Santoro, D., Sumner, S., & Jandt, J. M. (2021). Evolutionary and Ecological Pressures Shaping Social Wasps Collective Defenses. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 114(5), 581–595. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesa/saaa063
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Dani FR, Cervo R, Turillazzi S. (1992) Abdomen stroking behaviour and its possible functions in Polistes dominulus(christ) (hymenoptera, vespidae). Behav. Process. ;28(1):51–8. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24924790/
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da Silva, J. (2021). Life History and the Transitions to Eusociality in the Hymenoptera. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.727124
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Field, J. (2005). The evolution of progressive provisioning. Behavioral Ecology, 16(4), 770–778. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/ari054
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Matsuura, M. (1991). Vespa & Provespa. In K. G. Ross & R. W. Matthews (Eds.), The Social Biology of Wasps (pp. 245–246). Cornell University.
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Pardi L. Dominance Order in Polistes Wasps. Physiological Zoology. 1948;21(1):1–13.
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Peters, R. S., Krogmann, L., Mayer, C., Donath, A., Gunkel, S., Meusemann, K., Kozlov, A., Podsiadlowski, L., Petersen, M., Lanfear, R., Diez, P. A., Heraty, J., Kjer, K. M., Klopfstein, S., Meier, R., Polidori, C., Schmitt, T., Liu, S., Zhou, X., … Niehuis, O. (2017). Evolutionary History of the Hymenoptera. Current Biology, 27(7), 1013–1018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.027
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Plowes, N. (2010) An Introduction to Eusociality. Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):7, https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/an-introduction-to-eusociality-15788128/
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Reeve, H. K. (1991). Polistes. In K. G. Ross & R. W. Matthews (Eds.), The Social Biology of Wasps (pp. 125–127). Cornell University.
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Robinson, T. (2021, August 28). The Story of Stingers. The Evolving Naturalist. https://theevolvingnaturalist.com/the-story-of-stingers/
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Schmidt, J. O. (2004). Venom and the Good Life in Tarantula Hawks (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae): How to Eat, Not be Eaten, and Live Long. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 77(4), 402–413. https://doi.org/10.2317/E-39.1
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Sumner, S., & Cini, A. (2021). Paper Wasps (Polistes). In C. K. Starr, Encyclopedia of Social Insects (pp. 697–709). Springer International Publishing AG. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/drexel-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6466114
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Yamane, S., & Yamane, S. (2021). Vespinae. In C. K. Starr, The Encyclopedia of Social Insects (pp. 1000–1008). Springer International Publishing AG. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/drexel-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6466114
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Prezoto, F., Maciel, T. T., Detoni, M., Mayorquin, A. Z., & Barbosa, B. C. (2019). Pest control potential of social wasps in small farms and urban gardens. Insects, 10(7), 192.
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Sumner, S., Law, G., & Cini, A. (2018). Why we love bees and hate wasps. Ecological Entomology, 43(6), 836-845.
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Wilson, E. E., Mullen, L. M., & Holway, D. A. (2009). Life history plasticity magnifies the ecological effects of a social wasp invasion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(31), 12809-12813.