- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
For one, they're pollinators. Two, they're great predators, contributing to the biocontrol of such lepidopteran pests as cabbageworms (larva of cabbage white butterflies). Three, they're quite intelligent. Four, they're superb architects.
And they are much more. (Professor Amy Toth of Iowa State University told a UC Davis Entomoloogy and Nematology seminar: "They have been shown to carry yeasts to winemaking grapes that may be important contributors to the fermentation process and wonderful flavors in wine!"
Enter the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which is hosting an open house on "Social Wasps" from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 20 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. Attendees can chat one-on-one with wasp expert UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum. They can check out the wasp specimens; the Bohart houses some 50,000 vespid specimens in its eight-million insect specimen collection.
The open house is free and family friendly. Parking is also free.
Kimsey estimates that 2000 described species inhabit our world, and about 500 more are undescribed. The most headline-grabbing wasp? That would be the northern giant wasp, Vespa mandarinia, formerly known as the Asian giant wasp. The news media dubbed it "the murder hornet."
Many folks confuse the Western yellowjacket and the European paper wasp. An easy way to identify them is by the color of their antennae. Yellowjacket antennae are black, like the Las Vegas Raiders' logo, and European paper wasp antennae are orange, like the logo of the San Francisco Giants.
Kimsey details information on her fact sheets on yellowjackets and paper wasps. For example:
Yellowjackets. They build large, hidden nests, often in rodent burrows or in cavities of trees, walls or attics. Their nests can be huge with 50,000 to 100,00 workers. They feed on live prey. But the pest species, such as the Western yellowjacket, Vespula pensylvanica, "will scavenge other sources of meat and sugar, including sodas , hamburgers, and road kill." They are often called "meat bees."
Paper Wasps. They build open-faced nests, with the cells exposed. "Nests are built out of fibers the wasps collect from plants and mix with saliva. They are commonly located under eaves an in other protected sites. Even large nests rarely have more than 30 workers and one queen. These are all annual nests. They are founded in the spring and die in the fall. Paper wasps feed only on live insects, such as caterpillars and bugs. They do not scavenge in garbage or at picnics, like some of the yellowjacket species will do." Common in Northern California is the European paper wasp, Polistes dominula.
Kimsey is a recognized authority on insect biodiversity,systematicsandbiogeography of parasitic wasps, urban entomology, civil forensic entomology, and arthropod-related industrial hygiene. Among her many honors: she served as president of the International Society of Hymenopterists from 2002-2004. In 2020 she won the C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest honor bestowed by the the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA).
Kimsey plans to retire in 2024 but will continue her research and public service at the Bohart Museum.
The Bohart Museum not only houses a global collection of insect speciments, but a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects, tarantulas and more), and an insect-themed gift shop. For more information, contact the Bohart Museum at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu
Further Reading:
Wasps, The Astronishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect, a 256-book by Eric Eaton, published in 2021 by Princeton University. The pub;isher reports: "Wasps are far more diverse than the familiar yellowjackets and hornets that harass picnickers and build nests under the eaves of our homes. These amazing, mostly solitary creatures thrive in nearly every habitat on Earth, and their influence on our lives is overwhelmingly beneficial. Wasps are agents of pest control in agriculture and gardens. They are subjects of study in medicine, engineering, and other important fields. Wasps pollinate flowers, engage in symbiotic relationships with other organisms, and create architectural masterpieces in the form of their nests. This richly illustrated book introduces you to some of the most spectacular members of the wasp realm, colorful in both appearance and lifestyle. From minute fairyflies to gargantuan tarantula hawks, wasps exploit almost every niche on the planet. So successful are they at survival that other organisms emulate their appearance and behavior. The sting is the least reason to respect wasps and, as you will see, no reason to loathe them, either. Written by a leading authority on these remarkable insects, Wasps reveals a world of staggering variety and endless fascination."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But have you ever seen a frog's mouth filled with an entire European wasp colony?
No?
Check this out! On Aug. 8, sharp-eyed Adrienne R. Shapiro of Davis spotted a colony of European paper wasps, Polistes dominula, nesting in the mouth of a garden frog statue in The Cannery neighborhood, Davis.
She shared several images with us. In the large image below, "you can see the paper nest inside the mouth," noted husband Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology.
Incredible image! And what a mouthful.
Passersby may think these insects are yellowjackets nesting in the frog statute, but they are not. They are European paper wasps. "The first North American occurrence of P. dominula was reported in Massachusetts in the late 1970s, and by 1995, this species had been documented throughout then northeastern USA," according to Wikipedia. "Behavioral adaptations of P. dominula have allowed it to expand outside its native range and invade the United States and Canada. While most Polistes species in the United States feed only on caterpillars, P. dominula eats many different types of insects."
UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, says "There are three very different kinds of social wasps that make paper nests: yellowjackets, hornets and paper wasps."
In one of her Fact Sheets on the Bohart website, Kimsey writes: "Although they all belong to the same family of wasps, Vespidae, they build quite different kinds of nests. Paper wasps in the genera Polistes and Mischocyttarus build open-faced nests, where the individual cells are exposed. Hornets and yellowjackets build cells in separate combs that are all enclosed in a paper shell or shroud. Yellow jackets tend to build their nests in cavities. Hornets often create spherical free-hanging nests, but will also build nests in colonies."
Frankly, it's easy to distinguish the European paper wasps from the yellowjackets by the color of their antennae. European paper wasps have orange-tipped antennae while the antennae of the yellow jackets are black. Read what the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) says about "Yellowjackets and Other Social Wasps."
Now if a frog statue could talk..."Jumping Jehoshaphat! One more wasp in my mouth and I'll croak!"
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A sign on a recycling bin near the Mann Laboratory at the University of California, Davis, clearly reads "Bottles and Cans Only."
It says nothing about wasps.
But there they were: European paper wasps (Polistes dominula) building a nest yesterday beneath the overhanging lid of a bright blue recycling bin meant for "Bottles and Cans Only."
"They make open-faced nests under eaves all over the place," says Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis.
Associate professor Amy Toth of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, who studies European paper wasps (she's also delivered several presentations at UC Davis) says she's seen "many interesting (nest) places— in mailboxes, under the caps of metal gas cylinders, on outdoor thermometers."
Classic!
They're also meat eaters. We've seen them shred adult Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) butterflies and caterpillars in our yard and fly off with the parts.
Since this is National Pollinator Week, it should be noted that European paper wasps are pollinators.
Take it from Professor Toth who loves her research subjects. It was she who coined and popularized the Twitter hashtag #wasplove.
For a previous Bug Squad blog, we asked what she loves about wasps. Her answers are worth repeating!
- They are pollinators.
- They contribute to biocontrol of lepidopteran pests in gardens and on decorative plants.
- They have been shown to carry yeasts to winemaking grapes that may be important contributors to the fermentation process and wonderful flavors in wine!
- They are the only known insect (Polistes fuscatus) that can recognize each other as individuals by their faces.
- They are devoted mothers that will dote on their young all day long for weeks, defending their families with fury.
- Their social behavior, in my opinion, is the most human-like of any insect. They know each other as individuals, and are great cooperators overall, but there is an undercurrent of selfishness to their behavior,
- They are artists. They make perfect hexagonal nest cells out of paper, which they make themselves out of tree bark + saliva.
- They are extremely intelligent. They're predators, architects, good navigators, and great learners. Among insects, they have large brains, especially the mushroom bodies (learning/memory and cognition area of insect brain).
- They are beautiful, complex, and fascinating creatures!
That they are. However, they have never been known to read or adhere to "Bottles and Cans Only" signs--or stay away from donation boxes filled with paper bills.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
--John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
Muir said it well.
Muir (1938-1914), the naturalist and conservationist known as "The Father of Our National Parks," was the driving force behind the establishment of our national parks, including Yosemite National Park.
But have you ever thought about what he said: ""When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe"?
In our yard, we are rearing Gulf Fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanillae) on their host plant, the passionflower vine. The Gulf Frit is a bright orangish-reddish butterfly with silver-spangled underwings. It's a member of the family Nymphalidae and subfamily Heliconiinae.
We also consider it part of our family. The females and males mate, the females lay eggs on the passionflower vine, the eggs become caterpillars and the caterpillars become adults. That is, if the Western scrub jays and the praying mantids and the European paper wasps let them.
Lately, the caterpillars seem to be multiplying faster than the proverbial rabbits. The Western scrub jays are missing. They no longer sit on the fence and cherry-pick their prey. Why are they MIA? Three resident juvenile Cooper's hawks (as identified by Andrew Engilis, Jr., curator of the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology) possess an appetite for jays (among other prey). The result: too many caterpillars on our passionflower vine. The 'cats are defoliating the plant faster than we expected. In short, it's a veritable population crisis on our passionflower vine.
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
We love the caterpillars. We love the butterflies. We love the praying mantids. And we are trying our best to love, or at least like, the wasps after hearing researcher Amy Toth of Iowa State University speak fondly of them at UC Davis. Read the 10 things we should like about wasps. Note that she's trying to popularize the hashtag, #wasplove.
Meanwhile, what about those hawks? It's hawk heaven here. We love seeing them cooling their toes, splashing around in our front-yard birdbath, and communicating with their siblings. It's a sign of the times. California's severe drought means an influx of critters, large and small, heading for urban birdbaths. In addition to hawks, our birdbath draws squirrels, doves, finches, woodpeckers, scrub jays, sparrows, crows, honey bees and even a passing wild turkey with a neck long enough to reach the water.
Lately, it's a hawk birdbath. The jays are gone. The caterpillars are thriving.
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Izzo, who finished her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology last year at the University of Michigan, where she worked with Elizabeth Tibbetts on wasp communication and sexual selection, will speak on "Spotting the Top Male: Sexual Selection in a Lekking Paper Wasp." (Lekking means to engage in courtship displays.)
The seminar is sponsored by the Animal Behavior Graduate Group, which is hosting a series of winter-quarter seminars every Friday at noon in 6 Olson Hall. The series began Jan. 13 and will continue through March 16.
“Sexual selection has seen many advances over the past several decades, yet many questions remain,” said Izzo in her abstract. "Polistes dominulus paper wasps are a good system in which to study sexual selection, as males have a lek-based mating system and sexually dimorphic abdominal spots.
“Here, I demonstrate that these spots are used in both inter- and intra-sexual selection. Males with smaller, elliptically-shaped spots are more dominant over male rivals and are more preferred by females than males with larger, irregularly shaped spots. Additionally, the spots are condition-dependent and advertise quality.
“Further, spots function as signals: males with experimentally reduced abdominal spots win a greater proportion of fights and are preferred by females as mates over control males. Finally, female choice for attractive spots results in direct benefits to females. Females mated to males advertising high quality survive hibernation longer than females mated to males that advertise low quality. These results demonstrate that male ornaments are an important mediator of mating dynamics in paper wasps, and that females can gain direct benefits in non-economic mating systems. ”
Last summer we spotted her subject--Polistes dominulus--on a leaf in our backyard.
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, confirmed the identification. "Note the clean black and yellow coloration and the two circular spots on the second abdominal segment," she said.
(Michigan State University has some interesting information posted on this wasp. It's an Old World Species with a native range from Europe to China. It was first discovered in the United States--Cambridge, Massachusetts--in 1981.)
About Mandy Izzo: she initially accepted a postdoctoral researcher position in the UC Davis Department of Entomology involving honey bees but is now affiliated with the UC Davis Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and hopes to work on animal coloration projects.
She holds a master’s degree in biology from California State University, Northridge (2005) and a bachelor’s degree in integrative biology from UC Berkeley (2001).