Insect Observation PDF

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Observation of a wasp. Questions and Answers concerning wasp behavior....

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Date: Sunday, September 9, 2018 Time: 8:08 AM Weather: 63 degrees, no clouds, no noticeable breeze Location: El Dorado Hills, Ca - the foothills (I went home for the weekend to visit my parents) I attempted to find insects in my parents’ garden, but nothing was moving around except a few gnats that were too difficult to see and follow. I then decided to walk down the road to an open ravine that has a lot of oak trees and brush and a small stream bed that is currently dry. On my way to the ravine, as I was walking along the road beside some open land, I walked through a swarm of about 10 to 15 wasps. I wasn’t really looking to observe wasps or bees, but these were landing right on the road where I was walking and they were singularly focused on what I originally thought were sticks in the road, but upon closer observation, the “sticks” were actually what looked to be the spinal column of a small snake that had probably been run over. Nothing was left of the snake except its white vertebrae. Identification of Wasp: I used https://www.pestworld.org/news-hub/pest-articles/stinging-insects-101/ to identify the wasps based upon their morphology. I then went to https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Yellow-Jacket to find out more information about yellow jackets.The wasps are clearly identifiable as yellow jackets based upon their color patterns and the way their wings are folded longitudinally when they are not flying. I looked up yellow jackets online at https://www.britannica.com/animal/yellow-jacket and learned that yellow jackets have up to 40 different species of the genus Dolichovespula or Vespula. The wasps’ common name refers to their abdominal coloration with its black and yellow patterns; however, some species are actually white and black. From the closest photos I took with my phone, I used the webpage h  ttp://pubs.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9093/yellowjacket to determine that the wasps’ color patterns looked most like the V. vulgaris, although the minute details can be confusing.

Photo from Oregon State Website

Photo from my observation

Works Cited Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Yellow Jacket.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 26 Jan. 2018, www.britannica.com/animal/yellow-jacket. “Stinging Insects 101.” PestWorld.org Your Partner in Pest Prevention, www.pestworld.org/news-hub/pest-articles/stinging-insects-101/. “Yellow Jacket.” Insect Identification, www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Yellow-Jacket. ext_dpla. “Yellowjacket.” Yellowjacket | OSU Extension Catalog | Oregon State University, 29 Sept. 2014, pubs.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9093/yellowjacket.

Twenty Questions: 1. What differentiates a bee from a wasp? What specifically about their morphology is different? 2. The road is clearly not a natural habitat, so how did the wasps end up here? Were they able to smell the dead snake? Wasps are believed to have an extraordinary sense of smell. Wasps can detect scents that are as weak as four or five parts per billion air molecules. A wasp can even “smell faint odors from plants... (that) send out chemical distress signals when they are under attack by caterpillars” which allows the wasps to quickly locate caterpillars” that will serve as hosts for their eggs (Wittlin). Interestingly, a wasp can be trained to associate particular odors (even odors not normally in their natural environment) with food sources or available egg-hosts. This raises the possibility of training wasps to sniff out odors pertaining to drugs or bombs in the future, perhaps working alongside (or replacing) trained dogs. Wasps also use spatial location from landmarks near their nest or feeding sites to help guide them (Dadamo), but in the case of the dead snake (a food source not generally in that particular spot), it seems more logical that they sensed its odor. 3. Do the wasps fly in this low hovering, zig-zag pattern along the road as a foraging process to locate more food sources? Or, do wasps do this pattern once they have already located a source? 4. Do wasps work like a team in the same way that ants do when they locate a food source? At one point two wasps “wrestled” each other over the vertebrae, so it didn’t look too much like teamwork. Y  ellow jackets are among the most social insects on the planet, much like honey bees and fire ants. Yellow jackets have a single queen that is in charge of the colony. She has worker-daughter offspring (males are only for breeding) and there is cooperative care of the brood and a reproductive division of labor (National Science Foundation). Although wasps within a hive can show aggression toward each other (males killing the queen), it seems more likely that the grappling wasps were from different hives and competing for the same food source. Since the goal of each hive is to work cooperatively for their queen and colony and the wasps are able to recognize friend or foe, it would not make a lot of sense to fight your fellow worker; however, wasps are very aggressive and possibly might feel compelled to grapple each other in competition without killing one another. I could not find a lot of information about grappling behavior within the same colony, but found a lot of information on how aggressive wasps are toward other species. 5. How much weight can these wasps carry? They try to lift bigger pieces and sometimes succeed for a couple inches before they drop it and then resort to

“tearing off” a smaller piece. They look to be turning over the vertebrae until they can reach inside the spinal column where it used to be connected together when they cannot lift the whole vertebrae. 6. What type of habitat do these wasps make their home in? I followed one wasp as it flew to a bush alongside the road about five feet away. It landed on the bush and then disappeared beneath the leaves. I looked all through and under the bush but never could figure out where he went. 7. Do the wasps always travel together? They would mostly disappear together, leaving maybe one or two behind, and then within a few minutes, another (or the same) group would return to the vertebrae. 8. Do these wasps sting and bite? One landed on my leg and it felt more like a bite than a sting. And why would a wasp “bite” me if I am sitting still? Y  ellow jackets are one of the most aggressive of the stinging insects and they can both bite and sting multiple times. Yellow jackets often bite before they sting so they can get a better grip on their victim in order to sting them (Yellowjackets). 9. Are wasps beneficial to the environment? 10. Do these wasps also look for nectar, or just protein sources? Yellow jackets hunt for two food sources, meat and sweets. They bring back masticated protein to the colony’s larvae and they use the sweets (nectar) for energy as they scavenge. At the end of summer, yellow jackets become increasingly aggressive because they begin to run out of caterpillars and maggots as their prey and must turn more toward scavenging such as locating the dead snake on the road. (Angier) 11. How many wasps are generally in a natural hive? 12. How do these wasps communicate with one another? Wasps communicate chemically; they communicate through the use of pheromones. The pheromones that wasps release are highly potent to other wasps, but undetectable to humans. The pheromones are coded with different meanings, much like humans’ verbal cues. Pheromones are key to wasps’ identification of one another and mating, in which the pheromone released by the male tells the female about his identity and his location. Pheromones emitted when a wasp stings alerts and alarms other wasps within the hive to join in the defense. Wasps can also emit pheromones to mark food sources and to mark caterpillars that have already been claimed as an egg host. (Ryan) 13. Do their yellow and black markings warn off other insects? What makes them appear shiny? 14. How aggressive of an insect are these wasps? They don’t seem deterred when a try to brush them away from landing on me. Are they equally aggressive to people as to other insects? Y  ellow jackets are one of the most aggressive

stinging insects. They will work together to overwhelm an enemy. A single yellow jacket can release a pheromone directly on its victim when it stings to notify the rest of the colony that there, specifically, is the target to attack; thus, one sting turns into a swarmed attack. Yellow jackets are most aggressive in the fall when they are beginning to run out of food to feed their developing colony and winter is approaching (Hogan). 15. How do you tell male and female wasps apart? Do they have different jobs? 16. Do wasps always make sounds when present? Are they quieter than bees? I don’t hear any sound coming from them. 17. How much protein do wasps collect in a day? 18. Do wasps retreat in very hot or cold weather? I went back in the hot afternoon and all the wasps were gone. 19. What eats a wasp? Do they only fight to defend their territory or home? 20. If wasps from another hive found the snake too, would the first hive fight them, or would they share? Are they territorial toward scavenged food?

Works Cited Angier, Natalie. “Selfless, Helpful and Intelligent: the Wasp; Yellow Jackets Much More Than the Evil Guests at the Picnic, Scientists Say.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Aug. 1999, www.nytimes.com/1999/08/17/science/selfless-helpful-intelligent-wasp-yell ow-jackets-much-more-than-evil-guests.html. Dadamo, Paola, and Mariana Lozada. “Foraging Behaviour InVespula Germanicawasps Re-Locating a Food Source.” New Zealand Journal of Zoology, vol. 35, no. 1, 2008, pp. 9–17., doi:10.1080/03014220809510099. Hogan, John, and Grand Rapids Press. “Attack of the Yellow Jackets: Aggressive Behavior Peaks This Month.” MLive.com, MLive.com, 22 Sept. 2013, www.mlive.com/homeandgarden/index.ssf/2013/09/attack_of_the_yellow_ jackets_a.html. “National Science Foundation - Where Discoveries Begin.” NSF - National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/socialinsects.jsp. Ryan, Tom. “How Do Wasps Communicate?” Animals - Mom.me, 11 Aug. 2017, animals.mom.me/wasps-communicate-7412.html. Wittlin, Maggie. “Seed Magazineabout.” On Overconfidence § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM ,

seedmagazine.com/content/article/wasps_sniff_out_bombs_drugs_corpse s/. “Yellowjackets.” Rescue, www.rescue.com/bugs/yellowjackets/....