Central American paper wasp
The Central American paper wasp is a pale yellow wasp that works the night shift. While most wasps sleep at night, it flies out in the dark to find food. Its nest is a single open comb hanging under a branch, shaped like a straw hat.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its eyes are specially built to see in very dim light.
When the moon is bright, it stays out looking for food all night long.
Sometimes the whole colony leaves its nest together and flies off in a swarm to build a new one.
It calls the others to move by letting out a special smell into the air.
The Pankararú people of Brazil use it in their traditional medicine.
Most asked questions about Central American paper wasp
?Why does this paper wasp fly at night?
It has special eyes for seeing in the dark, so it can look for food when other wasps are sleeping.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Apoica pallens
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1804
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
Where the facts come from
- Apoica pallens (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 Dario (on behalf of Andrew Quitmeyer, DiNaLab). CC0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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