This curious wasp hung around us the other day while we were enjoying time outside before class. It didn’t leave until we did. The curious wasp, also known as the common paper wasp or Polistes exclamans, was quite striking due to its distinguished stripes and slender body. Paper wasps contain 22 different species and they are very common throughout Texas. They feed on nectar and pollen, but they also hunt for catepillars and other insects to nourish their colonies’ larvae.
Paper wasps are semi-social insects and have three castes within the colony: workers, males, and queens. Sterile worker wasps spend their lives building the nest, feeding young, and defending the nest. A mature nest may have 20 to 30 adults. In late summer, queens stop laying eggs and the colony begins to decline. In the fall, the mated female offspring of the queen seek overwintering sites and the remainder of the colony does not survive the winter.
You can find my iNaturalist post here.
References
http://texasinsects.tamu.edu/cimg348.html