#northern paper wasp

Northern Paper Wasp - Polistes fuscatus

It’s getting warmer and warmer with each new day in Toronto and that’s getting me excited for when the insects emergence and make themselves seen. Even turning over rocks now, there are specimens to be found in the soil (and some wood lice too, but those roly-polies are crustaceans rather than insects) as warmth and life returns to the plants. While it’s a bit too early to celebrate, it’s nice to welcome spring with sunlight, multiple small yellow flowers and the nectar loving insects they attract. Oh goodness, Wasps! Armed with gripping jaws and a stinger, they control this area when they arrive to gather liquid food. They aren’t even afraid to squabble with each other should a rival Wasp get too close as seen in Picture 10! Best to treat them with respect and distance, even though they’re more likely to escape than fight if approached. Having said that, all bets are off if you are near their nest. While they are Wasps, there’s no reason to not appreciate them and the role they play in the forest ecosystem: specifically contributing to pollination and keeping soft-bodied insect populations in check as the current active workers feed the young larval workers with solid food. 

Try not to be fearful of them. Compared to other Wasps, they aren’t very aggressive and are more geared to foraging without opportunistic hunting in an urban setting. There are more than enough prey items for them to capture in the wilderness on the plants they feed from. Rummaging through the goldenrod flowers, we find what I assume are both females and males. Up north, it seems that female Northern Paper Wasps are easier to identify since they are have a greater distribution of dark colors across their bodies. Males seem to have a curled antenna tip and lighter colors but as this insect is quite variable, there’s only so much to be discerned from a picture and without observing a live specimen. There can be so much variability that at one point the Golden Paper Wasp (Polistes aurifer) was seen as a subspecie of this insect, until it was reclassified. Their still Paper Wasps through and through, and that means that nest construction is likely to begin soon with the weather turning warmer. During the summer, fertile queens to be are born and overwinter when the weather turns cold. Upon the return of spring, the young queen searches for a suitable nesting site and begins construction single-handedly using wood pulp and her own saliva. It’s hard work now, but we’ll soon have workers to tend to her and manage the colony. 

Pictures were taken on August 22 and September 5, 2022 with a Google Pixel 4. Happy Spring to everyone!