Vespula squamosa: A Yellow Jacket Wasp Evolving Toward Parasitism
Abstract
Evidence from behavior and from nest architecture implicates Vespula squamosa as a temporary, apparently facultative social parasite of V. maculifrons. Analysis of 66 V. squamosa nests collected in northern Georgia revealed that 54 were initially built by V. maculifrons. Three very young V. maculifrons nests, each with a V. squamosa queen and workers of both species, confirmed the parasitic propensity.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- December 1975
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.190.4218.1003
- Bibcode:
- 1975Sci...190.1003M