Tropical Paper Wasp

Description:

Vespidae; Polistinae; Polistini; Polistes sp. When I spotted this nest with wasps coming and going, I thought they were Polistes stigma which appears to be common in our area. However, when I checked the photos against images on the web, I realised that there are small differences in the markings. Since they are reasonably close and I cannot match them exactly to any species I could find, I have settled for Polistes sp. The nest looks just like that of P. stigma. So, that also helped to confirm the Genus Polistes. Interestingly, Wikipedia mentions that the males have seven visible metasomal segmants and the females have only six. So I think the wasp in my 4th picture is male and the one in the 5th picture is female, but I the photos aren't clear enough to be certain. As you can see, there is a plant stem diagonally obstructing the view of the wasps. Normally, I would just move something like that out of the way, but in the case of a wasp nest, it is not wise to disturb things.

Habitat:

The nest built by these wasps was spotted hanging on a pot plant in our front yard.