Horse paper wasp
Polistes major
The horse paper wasp is one of the biggest paper wasps. The most common kind is reddish brown with broad yellow stripes, but some are all red. In the Dominican Republic people call it the horse wasp.
Lives in
From South America and the Caribbean north to the southern United States
Length
1.7 to 2.2 cm (0.67 to 0.87 in)
What does it eat?
Like other paper wasps, it catches caterpillars and other insects to feed its babies, and drinks sweet nectar itself.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 4 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 15 seconds⚡moves 330 times its own body length every second
How big is Horse paper wasp compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
Horse paper wasp about 26 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its wings can stretch up to 4.5 centimetres from tip to tip.
2
Only one paper wasp, its cousin Polistes carnifex, is bigger.
3
There are five different kinds, called subspecies, and some of them have no yellow at all.
4
Paper wasps build their nests from chewed wood that dries into paper.
you asked
Most asked questions about Horse paper wasp
?How big is the horse paper wasp?
About 1.7 to 2.2 centimetres long, which is big for a paper wasp.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Polistes major
- Named by
- Palisot de Beauvois, 1818
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- South America, North America
Where the facts come from
- Polistes major (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 Judy Gallagher. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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