Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Photo#78817
Wasp - Polistes exclamans - female

Wasp - Polistes exclamans - Female
Houston, Harris County, Texas, USA
September 17, 2006
It's eating a monarch caterpillar, which it flew off with. Then it came back to the milkweed to look for more.

Moved
Moved from Polistes.

Polistes exclamans, female (TX)
Note the contrastingly coloured apical flagellomeres and the slender first metasomal segment. There is a very similar species in s. Texas, P. instabilis, which would be difficult to separate based on this image.