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Tropical Paper Wasp

Polistes stigma

Description:

A very interesting observation I could carry out in my wild garden, when they decided to use a succulent plant's spike to hang their nest on. Nests are built of chewed plant material, have multiple rooms and after laying one egg in each room, plus chewed caterpillar as food, they close each chamber. It started with four wasps, hence my macro shots, but later there were about 20 of them, some a bit aggressive, defending the nest, so that kept me on distance, using a tele to get the shots of the extended nest. Males have one band on the last part of the abdomen, females have two. The females also have brown eyes whereas the males have black eyes. The time between the first photo and the last (L to R) is six weeks

Habitat:

Wild garden

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11 Comments

JoeHartman
JoeHartman 10 years ago

Thanks Leonardo

Leonardo Castro
Leonardo Castro 10 years ago

Great sequence!! Very informative and artistic shots! Good work, Joe!

JoeHartman
JoeHartman 10 years ago

Thanks surekha

surekha
surekha 10 years ago

Fantastic series! Very well shot!!

JoeHartman
JoeHartman 10 years ago

Thank you Marta. As it is opposite my house I tried to get a complete documentation, as I was lucky enough to see the start: a very small nest. Now it's a multistory building and a lot of young stuff will come out. I had never seen eggs of wasps anyway, also the chewing of plant material is a joy to witness.

The MnMs
The MnMs 10 years ago

Excellent series! I love the image that shows the eggs. This spotting shows us a variety of activities of these wasps..very well done!

JoeHartman
JoeHartman 10 years ago

Thanks Mark and David!

DavidStockton
DavidStockton 10 years ago

i agree with mark..very nice !!

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 10 years ago

Fantastic series Joe !!

JoeHartman
JoeHartman 10 years ago

Thanks Jemma

Hema  Shah
Hema Shah 10 years ago

excellent series.

JoeHartman
Spotted by
JoeHartman

จังหวัดอุดรธานี, Thailand

Spotted on Jul 12, 2013
Submitted on Oct 12, 2013

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