Common aerial yellowjacket
The common aerial yellowjacket is a yellow and black wasp from North America. It builds a round grey nest out of paper, high up in trees and bushes. A whole family of wasps lives inside, led by one queen.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The nest is made of grey paper. The wasps make the paper themselves by chewing up wood.
In spring a queen starts the nest all alone. By summer it is full of workers, and when winter comes the family breaks up.
Skunks, raccoons and even bears sometimes raid a nest that hangs too low, to eat the juicy larvae.
Most asked questions about Common aerial yellowjacket
?Where do common aerial yellowjackets build their nests?
Usually in trees and bushes, and in towns often on buildings. The nest is round and made of grey paper.
?What do common aerial yellowjackets eat?
The workers catch live insects and spiders to feed the young in the nest.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dolichovespula arenaria
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Sandhills hornet, Common yellow hornet
Where the facts come from
- Dolichovespula arenaria (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Gilles Gonthier from Canada. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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