Parachartergus fraternus
| Parachartergus fraternus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Vespidae |
| Subfamily: | Polistinae |
| Tribe: | Epiponini |
| Genus: | Parachartergus |
| Species: | P. fraternus |
| Binomial name | |
|
Parachartergus fraternus (Gribodo, 1892) |
|
Parachartergus fraternus is a neotropical, swarm founding, polistine wasp species that is distributed throughout Central and South America. They live in nests in second growth tropical dry forests, near pasture fields, roadside areas, and urban areas as well. These wasps eat insects, such as caterpillars of Lepidoptera. They also drink nectar, honeydew, and water. The workers capture their prey during foraging. They also use venom to paralyze their prey in order to consume it later.P. fraternus wasps are not very aggressive and they do not attack when the nest is approached.
Parachartergus fraternus is closely related to the species Parachartergus apicalis. These wasps belong to the genus Parachartergus, which has sixteen species distributed from Mexico to southern Argentina. Ten of these species are found in Brazil and two are endemic. Most Parachartergus species have few morphological differences between castes in all stages of the colony cycle.
For a wasp species, Parachartergus fraternus is average in size. A typical Parachartergus fraternus forager is about 11 mm long, 3 mm wide across its thorax, and weighs about 0.05 g. Queens do not differ morphologically from workers and are therefore similar in size. The dorsal and ventral parts of the body are blackish which is a characteristic of this species. The abdomen has a shape with short hairs that can only be seen with a microscope. The abdomen is linked to the thorax by a pedunculum. At rest, the wings are longitudinally bent with the last distal part being clear and colorless (almost white). The wings also have very pronounced veins. The eyes of the wasp are big and compound with a large number of facets. The antennae are bent at a sharp angle and the mouthparts are orange colored. The age of the wasp is determined by examining the progressive pigmentation of the transverse apodeme, which is located at the base of each sternum. The youngest wasps have no pigmentation, middle aged wasps have brown coloring, and the oldest wasps have black coloring.
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Wikipedia