Median wasp
The median wasp is a big wasp with yellow and black stripes on its tail end and a shiny black middle with four yellow spots. It builds a round paper nest that hangs in bushes and trees. Its queens are so big and reddish that people often think they are hornets.
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Fun facts
It makes its nest out of paper. The paper comes from wood that the wasps chew up.
A nest can be 12 to 23 centimetres wide and hangs 1 to 5 metres above the ground.
A queen starts the nest all by herself in spring and raises the first 10 workers alone.
A whole nest lasts only about three months, from May to the end of August.
It first reached Britain in 1980.
Most asked questions about Median wasp
?What does the median wasp eat?
Grown-ups drink nectar, and they feed insects to their babies.
?Is the median wasp a hornet?
No, but its big reddish queens are often mistaken for hornets.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dolichovespula media
- Named by
- Retzius, 1783
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Vespidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Vespidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Median wasp (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 Carsten Steger. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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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