Unstable paper wasp
The unstable paper wasp is a large wasp with yellow, brown and reddish markings. It makes its own paper by chewing plant fibres, and builds its nest out of it. The nest hangs from a little stalk and its cells are open, like a honeycomb.
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Unstable paper wasp compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The queen looks just like the workers. You can only tell her apart because she is the bossiest wasp in the nest.
Its colonies are small. Even a big nest has fewer than 100 wasps.
In Costa Rica, when the rainy season ends, the wasps fly up into the mountains to wait out the winter.
Males have yellow faces and curl the tips of their feelers. Females keep their feelers straight.
Mayan people call it names like "red mosquito" and "red nose".
Most asked questions about Unstable paper wasp
?How does a paper wasp make paper?
It chews plant fibres into a soft paste and shapes it into the cells of its nest. When the paste dries, it becomes paper.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Polistes instabilis
- Named by
- Saussure, 1853
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
Where the facts come from
- Polistes instabilis (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 Cristopher Gonzalez from Cozumel, Mexico. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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.
Bug Wiki honey jar For grown-ups: Bug Wiki is free, with no ads and no tracking. A small tip helps keep it online.Leave a tip
European hornet
Northern giant hornet
Bald-faced hornet
Red velvet ant
Eastern cicada killer
Asian hornet
Orange-belted leafwalker
Woodland fuzzy ant
Sanderson's bumble bee
Green arches
Tessellated stick insect
Northern wave moth_(7623451086).jpg){kind=link}