FAMILY VESPIDAE - Paper Wasps and Potter Wasps

This page contains pictures and information about the Wasps in family Vespidae that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.

Wasps feed on on nectar although their larvae are carnivorous.

Species in this family mostly large. Inner margins of their compound eyes usually emarginated. When rest, their fore wings often folded longitudinally, never folded horizontally.   

All the social wasps are in this wasp family, although some members in this family are solitary wasps. In this family some wasps build paper nest while others build mud nest.

Potter Wasps build mud nest with jug shape. They are solitary wasps. They are common around Brisbane. 
 

Subfamily  Eumeninae - Potter Wasps


Subfamily Polistinae - Paper Wasps


Reference:
1. Insects of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 979.
2. Insects of Australia and New Zealand - R. J. Tillyard, Angus & Robertson, Ltd, Sydney, 1926, p295. 

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Last updated: October 24, 2006.