Polistes species

Vespidae

Paper wasps (Polistes) are beautiful pieces of creation:  intelligent, complex, good-looking, and docile if you don’t ask for it.    I’ve spent hours around them in two contexts botanizing and engaged in home maintenance, including on a ladder painting and repairing under the eaves and stuff like that.  Ever stung?   About once a decade or less, from the same cause:  grabbing a branch to show flowers to students on a fieldtrip, only to find the branch pre-occupied. With a whole class watching, no profanity!   If somebody grabs me I’ll sting too, and the sting isn’t ferocious, unless maybe the recipient has an allergy. 

Some folks may dislike paper wasps as predators.  As the sweating co-digger in a home butterfly garden, I do wish paper wasps did not consume nice caterpillars, but then again, wolves consume nice deer, and we consume nice cows.  By the way, the green lynx spider turns the tables, lurking on flowers and catching pollinators, having a special fondness for a tasty Polistes treat.

You’d be surprised how poorly studied paper wasps are, due largely no doubt to the inconvenience of their lifestyles, nesting naturally in hard-to-visit habitats, roaming long distances, and not universally regarded as charismatic.   Most research centers on their nesting on residential structures…they need wood to chew and form into the papery umbrella-shaped nest.

The nutritional habits of paper wasps are complex and odd.   They haul caterpillars and other victims back to the nest to feed larvae.   The foraging wasp to some extent consumes, softens, and partially pre-digests the prey, regurgitating the glop as baby formula.   Roaming wasps additionally visit flowers to collect nectar for their personal energy needs, and sometimes to contribute honey to the nest.

The birds, bees, and butterflies think they own pollination, but respect also the paper wasps. They too pollinate.  Some orchids and all figs have wasps as pollinators, but those are different sorts of wasps.   Paper wasps visit a lot of flowers, although they have an exclusive relationship with few.  The only local totally waspy case I can bring to mind is the shrub Corkwood, Stillingia aquatica, where pollination in the wet season is soley by wasps, or essentially so.   Bees and wasps visit in the dry season, but when the marsh is under 2 feet of summer rain the bees bug out and the wasps have a monopoly.   Big marshy habitats can be miles across, requiring athletic pollinators.

Stillingia inflorescences and the surrounding leaves are yellowish.   Wasps love yellowish, although they visit flowers of other hues too.   Some Polistes favorites are Goldenrods, additional members of the Aster Family having yellow centers, members of the Carrot Family,  Milkweeds, and Sweetscents (Pluchea).

Polistes wasps are super-powered.  One big brazen Brazilian species, Polistes lanio, has returned to its nest like a homing pigeon after being released 2 km away, flying at 8.7 meters/second, potentially covering those 2 km in under 4 minutes, almost 20 miles per hour. How does it finds its way?  Quite a feat for a microscopic brain, and I can’t find my glasses.

Those out foraging and pollinating are mostly females, as the males—which grow from unfertilized eggs—live comparatively briefly, although there is variation, and in some species males participate in feeding larvae.

What we need around here is a study on the relationships between paper wasps and plants in South Florida:  where they nest, their daily habits and home ranges, flower preferences, interactions with other flower-visiting insects and spiders, and contributions to pollination.  Wow that would be great if you think about it, so easy to say, but if you think about it more, you’d have to have the power of Polistes to take it on. No wonder we’re still in the dark.