Paper wasp guarding the nest (and other pics added)

[beetleman]

I don`t think I could get that close to our brown paper wasps here in NH. They come at you if your a few feet from the nest. A really amazing set of photos Rik. Beautiful.

[rjlittlefield]

Following up on questions and contacts provided by Betty (Planapo), I asked Dr. Joan Strassmann at Rice University what she could tell us about these wasps.

With Dr. Strassmann's gracious permission, here is her reply:

What a great photo. How did you take it? Details! Yes, that is Polistes dominulus. Notice on others that the black area in the middle of the clypeus (between mandibles or mouth and antennae bases) is yellow with a black mustache, but can vary. There is a paper on what these patterns can mean in Nature by Elizabeth Tibbetts. The blobby stuff in the top left of some cells is honey stored there for later use. The silk in the two cells under and to the right of the wasp is sign of a parasite that killed the larvae or egg, I believe, though it is hard to tell from this picture. It is not the wasp pupa. The parasite is probably an ichneumonid like Pachysomoides iphithalis.

I find the information about parasitism to be very interesting, and just possibly I can follow up on it. That particular wasp nest is doomed by a construction project that starts in a few weeks , but perhaps I can retain enough of it to collect some parasites when they emerge later. I will keep you informed, of course...

--Rik

[rjlittlefield]

By the way, I haven't tracked down Tibbetts' full paper in Nature yet, but here is what seems to be a brief summary.

"The Blotchier the Face, the Better the Wasp", at http://uanews.org/pdfs/10060.pdf .

--Rik

[rjlittlefield]

I also asked Dr. Mary Jane West-Eberhard at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Costa Rica what info she could provide.

Here is Dr. West-Eberhard's reply, reproduced with her gracious permission:

That's a beautiful photograph. I have not lived in the US for many years, but have seen the invading Polistes dominulus both in Italy and in various parts of the US and that looks like it to me. Better to consult with George Gamboa (in Michigan - see web) who knows them better. He may be interested in the fact that it has spread to the West Coast if that is not known (but it probably is!).

The chalky looking material in the egg cells is dried nectar. In some other cells clear droplets are visible, probably more recently placed droplets of nectar, but possibly water (if it persists or is sweet-tasting it is nectar). In all cases I have observed, nectar is placed by Polistes only in egg-containing cells, but late in the season nectar storage is more voluminous and may occupy other (e.g., empty) cells. There is a paper by Joan Strassman on the subject of nectar storage in Polistes.

--Rik

[rjlittlefield]

As you can see, there's been some increase in the number of adults and expansion of the nest. This picture is from a few minutes ago. I count 21 adults in this picture, up from 8 on June 27.

--Rik

Technical: Canon A710 IS in AV mode at f/6.3, built-in flash, auto-focus with focus assist beam on since it was almost pitch black without added lights. Shot at arm's length with about 6" working distance, cropped to about 70% of frame width. Minor color correction to match previous shots.

[MacroLuv]

Very nice Rik, got all of them sharp!
You are going to have a really big colony.