German wasp
The German wasp is a black and yellow wasp that lives in big families. Its nest is made of grey paper that the wasps make by chewing plant fibres. It came from Europe, North Africa and Asia, and now lives on almost every continent.
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Fun facts
Most of its nests are built under the ground, but some are in attics.
Each nest is started in spring by just one queen.
In Australia some nests survive the winter and grow huge, with many queens.
Workers with three tiny black dots on their face are German wasps rather than common wasps.
In autumn the new queens go to sleep for the winter and the old nest falls apart.
Most asked questions about German wasp
?Where does the German wasp build its nest?
Mostly underground, but sometimes in attics or other buildings.
?What is the nest made of?
Paper the wasps make by chewing plant fibres and mixing them with spit.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Vespula germanica
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- European wasp, German yellowjacket, Yellowjacket
Where the facts come from
- Vespula germanica (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 Richard Bartz , Munich aka Makro Freak. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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