We're so accustomed to seeing the non-native European paper wasp, Polistes dominula, that it's quite a surprise to encounter a native, the golden paper wasp, P. aurifer, and especially in the winter.

It was--and is--sheltering at the UC Davis Bee Haven. The half-acre garden, open to the public from dawn to dusk, is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus. (Admission and parking are free.)

"That Wasp Guy" Sloan Tomlinson, a Facebook and Instagram friend, identified the native wasp.  He identifies himself on Instagram as an "artist, photographer, researcher, educator. sharing the beauty of the most-maligned insects: wasps. Wasp t-shirts, stickers, art prints, and posters." If you like wasps--and you should--you'll want to follow him. 

"This time of year it would be a foundress for sure," said Tomlinson, who resides in Hatfield, Mass. "It's a cool species. We sadly don't have them out here in the east."

"I feel like they're less common," he added. "Likely displaced by P. dominula."

P. aurifer is found in the western part of North America, from southern Canada through the United States to northern Mexico, according to Wikipedia. It's been recorded in California, Arizona, Colorado, far west North Dakota, western South Dakota, Idaho, western most Kansas, Montana, western Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, far west Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming (a single record in the far northwest).

"Aurifer" is a Latin word meaning gold-bearing. Simple and descriptive, right?

Which brings us to Tomlinson's Happy New Year video of "fun" scientific names. "Today I wanted to focus just on scientific names! There are a lot of fun names out there, but binomials often are scary and seem unapproachable. Like the soldier fly, Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides, definitely a mouthful! But you probably already know loads of scientific names! Many common names for plants are their genus names for example (Amaryllis, Aloe, Aster, Cannabis, Citrus, Echinacea, Eucalyptus, Iris, Hydrangea, Geranium, Sassafras, etc), and if you ask any kid, they can probably rattle off tons of scientific names, as no dinosaur has a common name! Tyrannosaurus rex is a binomial! (Tyrannosaurs is a genus, rex is the species). People are often more familiar with vertebrate animals than they are insects, but there are only around 54,000 species of vertebrates (including all the fish!) so a lot have common names, but there are over 1,000,000 species of insect, with likely many many more we still haven't discovered, so having them all have a binomial AND a common name is insane and impossible. Plus, some are fun! If you can't read the LOTR wasps in that part they all belong to the genus Shireplitis and contain the species S. bilboi, S. frodoi, S. meriadoci, S. peregrini, S. samwisei, and S. tolkieni! Happy New Year everyone."

One of the names Tomlinson mentions is noted entomologist Arnold Menke and his "Aha ha" wasp.. Menke, a UC Davis doctoral alumnus, named the Australian wasp "Aha ha" in 1977. The background:  when Menke received a package from a colleague containing insect specimens, he exclaimed "Aha, a new genus!" and fellow UC Davis doctoral alumnus Eric Grissell responded with a doubtful "ha!" It did indeed prove to be a new genus, thus "Aha ha." Menke also obtained that name for his vehicle license plate.  (See Wikipedia)

Does Menke still have that license plate? He does. In an Aug. 27th email,  he wrote: "I still have the license plate but it is not on my car."