Yellowjacket
The yellowjacket (or yellow jacket) is a wasp from the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula. In some English-speaking countries, they are called wasps. Most are black and yellow. Some are black and white.
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Yellowjackets are sometimes confused with bees because they have rather similar colouring.[1] Yellowjackets have a stinger with a small barb. They may sting repeatedly.
The diet of an adult yellowjacket is usually sugars and carbohydrates. They are important predators of other insects because they feed their larvae (grubs) with chewed-up insects.
They are native to North America and parts of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
References
- ↑
Yellowjacket Media
- Face of a Southern Yellowjacket Queen (Vespula squamosa).jpg
Face of a southern yellowjacket (Vespula squamosa)
- Vespula germanica SEM Sting 01.jpg
Yellowjacket stinger in its sheath in a scanning electron microscope
- Vespula 0078 Large.png
Vespula squamosa queen
- Wasp eating apple.jpg
Yellowjacket eating an apple
- YellowJckets disturbed.webm
Yellowjacket wasps can be very aggressive if disturbed. Here the ground was pounded next to their nest starting an ongoing disturbance--with sound.
- Yellowjacket disturbed some.webm
Yellowjacket wasps are disturbed, but not enough to swarm around their nest entrance—with sound. The response is down to one wasp after seven minutes.
- Yellowjackt catch.webm
Yellow jacket wasp catches green bottle fly to feed its larvae, followed by the final catch in slow motion. rabbit carrion is four days old.
Yellowjacket wasps using a stone as a landmark to navigate to their nest entrance. When the stone moved, they continued for a time to return orienting with the stone.
- YellowJacketFallLeavesFCE 90sec thd3.webm
Yellowjacket response when a leaf blocks their entrance--with sound.
- Yellowacket fall cold.webm
Very late in season, nearly every morning is too cold for the yellowjackets to forage. In another several weeks all are dead—except the new queens sheltering somewhere else.
- Wasp and ant.webm
Yellowjacket wasp at fermenting fruit harassed to leave by aggressive ant
"Yellow Jackets". Mother Earth News. Retrieved February 17, 2017.