Agelaia multipicta

Agelaia multipicta
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Vespidae
Subfamily:	Polistinae
Tribe:	Epiponini
Genus:	Agelaia
Species:	A. multipicta
Binomial name
Agelaia multipicta Haliday, 1836

Agelaia multipicta is a swarm-founding, highly eusocial wasp that lives in Mexico, Argentina, Trinidad and southern Brazil. It nests in natural cavities such as hollow trees and aggressively defends the nest from ants, who are brood predators. The workers and queens are morphologically distinguished by ovarian development as well as external features such as a larger petiole and gaster in the queen. Like other carrion-eating (necrophagous) wasp species, A. multipicta plays a scavenging role in the ecosystem.

A. multipicta is an insect of the order Hymenoptera, winged insects, and the family Vespidae, containing all species of eusocial wasps and many solitary wasps. The subfamily Polistinae, to which A. multipicta belongs, contains eusocial wasps as well as all the social wasps in the Neotropics. Four tribes are embedded within the subfamily, Polistini, Mischocyttarini, Ropalidinni and finally Epiponini, to which A. multipicta belongs. Agelaia multipicta was identified by the Irish entomologist Alexander Henry Haliday in 1836.

James Carpenter's taxonomic key describes characteristic features of this species such as that the "hind-wing with jugal lobe normal, not reduced," and that the head has an occipital carina present. Additionally, in A. multipicta Carpenter notes the "pronotum without sinuous carina" and the "body without pale maculations, cuticle partly to entirely bluish metallic or yellowish with some bluish highlights; head in lateral view with tempera as wide or wider than eye at ocular sinus"

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Wikipedia