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Sticker of Yellow oriental paper wasp
Bug card No. 4870 of 4,939

Yellow oriental paper wasp

Polistes olivaceus

The yellow oriental paper wasp is a slim yellow wasp. Like other paper wasps, it builds its nest from paper that it makes by chewing wood. It comes from India and East Asia but has travelled to many islands.

Lives in
India and East Asia, and now also East Africa, the Seychelles, Hawaii and other Pacific islands
Top speed
about 22 km/h (14 mph)
Flying, estimate
What does it eat?
Paper wasps drink sweet nectar and catch caterpillars and other insects to feed their young.
For real!Photo of Yellow oriental paper wasp
Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It has been carried to faraway islands like Hawaii, Easter Island and the Cook Islands.

2

In the Cook Islands people call it "Rango Patia" in their own language.

3

Its nest is made of paper that the wasps make themselves from chewed-up wood.

you asked

Most asked questions about Yellow oriental paper wasp

?Where does the yellow oriental paper wasp live?

It comes from India and East Asia and now also lives in East Africa and on many Pacific islands.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Polistes olivaceus
Group
Wasps and hornets
Family
Vespidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
Lives on
Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Macao paper wasp, Yellow paper wasp

Where the facts come from

  1. Polistes olivaceus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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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