| Home | Table of contents | Keys | Species list | Glossary | Image data | PDF | Cite this article | Feedback | Updates |
Identification Atlas of the Vespidae (Hymenoptera, Aculeata) of the northeastern Nearctic region
Matthias Buck, Stephen A. Marshall, and David K.B. Cheung
Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
1. Introduction
The family Vespidae includes some of the most common and conspicuous of all wasps so that the word “wasp” is often used to refer to common yellowjackets or paper wasps – the social species within the Vespidae – rather than members of other, much more diverse families of Hymenoptera. Besides the two social subfamilies (Vespinae, Polistinae) the North American Vespidae also include the less familiar solitary subfamilies Eumeninae (mason or potter wasps), Masarinae (pollen wasps) and Euparagiinae. Because of their sociality and (in some cases) their relevance as pest species, social Vespidae have received much attention. The fairly extensive literature on Vespinae and Polistinae can easily distract from the fact that overall the family is not very well studied, and that both the Polistinae and Eumeninae still hold significant unresolved taxonomic problems. The need for further taxonomic work is underlined by the lack of adequate keys. There are no published keys for some of the most common and diverse genera in the subfamily, and only partial keys to others. In some cases existing keys are outdated because closely related, similar species are not separated or newly introduced exotic species are not considered. There is also a need to base species identifications on a broader base of characters and to illustrate characters used by previous authors.
Continue with: Materials and methods
| Home | Table of contents | Keys | Species list | Glossary | Image data | PDF | Cite this article | Feedback | Updates | |
||