Ropalidia romandi
| Yellow Paper Wasp | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Vespidae |
| Subfamily: | Polistinae |
| Tribe: | Ropalidiini |
| Genus: | Ropalidia |
| Species: | R. romandi |
| Binomial name | |
|
Ropalidia romandi (Le Guillou, 1841) |
|
Ropalidia romandi, also known as the yellow brown paper wasp or the yellow paper wasp. is a species of paper wasp found in Northern and Eastern Australia. R. romandi is a swarm-founding wasp, and manages perennial nests. Its nests are known as 'paper bag nests' and have different architectural structures, depending on the substrates from which they are built. The specific name honors Gustave, baron de Romand, a prominent French political figure and amateur entomologist.
Because swarm-founding colonies can contain more than one egg-laying queen, they tend to challenge current kin selection theory. in that they do not meet William D. Hamilton’s rule of haplodiploid eusocial Hymenoptera, in which all the sisters from a single mating of one queen with a parthenogenetically-produced male will share 75% of their genes. This wasp often has multiple strepsipteran endoparasites, and it delivers a very painful sting when threatened.
Ropalidia romandi, first named by Élie Jean François Le Guillou in 1841, is in the subfamily Polistinae. It contains two subspecies, R. romandi romandi (Le Guillou 1841) and R. romandi cabeti (de Saussure 1853).Ropalidia is the only genus in Polistinae that contains both independent-founding species, founded by only one or a few fertilized females, and swarm-founding species. Swarm-founding species within Ropalidia must thus have evolved independently from swarm-founding species found in other polistine genera. This genus is distributed across Oceania and the Old World, and contains approximately 180 species. It and the other three Old World polistine genera form a monophyletic group.
Ropalidia romandi is unique for its overall yellow color, with dark brown markings on its thorax and abdomen. Measuring around 12mm, R. romandi is considered small. The first segment of the abdomen in Ropalidia is narrower than the following segments. R. romandi's front wings fold lengthwise when resting, which is a common characteristic of paper wasps.
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