Guinea Paper Wasps

Here's a fairly common wasp that's fairly happy building nests on the ceilings of outdoor structures: Guinea Paper Wasps. I believe this particular nest was under the green-roof pavilion near Duke Farms' Orientation Center. I had trouble getting a good picture because I had to shoot through some wire mesh; I have some sharper pictures here.

Guinea Paper Wasps and all their wasp, bee, and ant relatives are haplodiploid insects. This is when sex determination is determined by egg fertilization; no X or Y chromosomes are involved. Unfertilized eggs develop into males/drones while fertilized eggs develop into females. This has some interesting characteristics:
  • If a female mates with only one male, her daughters will (on average) share 75% of their genes since they inherit 50% of their mother's genes but 100% of their father's genes.
  • Because males come from a female's unfertilized eggs, they inherit all their genes from their mothers. Males have no fathers but can have grandfathers.
  • It's possible that sisters being so closely related has led to eusocial colonies in many wasps, bees, and ants.
September 14, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 248762306, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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