DESCRIPTIONS OF THE NESTS OF 
PSE JJDOC HA R TER G US FUSCATUS AND 
STELOPOLYBIA TESTACEA , 
WITH A NOTE ON A PARASITE OF 
S. TESTACEA (HYMENOPTERA, VESPIDAE) * 
By Robert L. Jeanne 
The Biological Laboratories, Harvard University 
Cambridge, Mass. 
The nest built by a colony of wasps is the tangible product of 
complex behavior patterns which have evolved in response to a 
variety of factors. Since the nest is a. solid object which remains 
after the colony has gone, it provides a direct means of gaining insight 
into some of these factors. The remarkable architectural diversity of 
nests, especially among tropical species, suggests that the factors in 
question are many and varied. 
Beyond their importance in studies of the adaptations of individual 
species, nests must be taken into consideration in studies of the 
phylogeny of the social vespids. Richards and Richards (1951) point 
out that the details of behavior as well as morphology must be care- 
fully studied in deducing phylogenetic relations of each group so 
that those characters selected will combine to give the most consistent 
classification. Henri de Saussure (1853-8) was the first to classify 
nests of social wasps according to their structure. Adolph Ducke, to 
whom we are indebted for much of what we know about neotropical 
social wasps, attempted to construct a. phylogeny of the Vespidae 
based on Saussure’s classification (Ducke, 1914), but his success was 
limited by inadequate taxonomic knowledge of the wasps themselves, 
and a lack of knowledge of the details of nest-building behavior. 
Ducke also made no attempt to understand the adaptive functions 
of the various features of nest structure. Though a great deal has 
been accomplished since Ducke’s time, especially through the work 
of Bequaert and of the Richardses, we still have much to learn 
before we can hope to understand the evolution of nest structure 
in this family. The nests of roughly 30% of the species of neotropical 
polistine wasps (exclusive of the genera Polistes and Mischocyttarus ) 
remain completely unknown, and many of the descriptions that do 
exist are cursory and note only general architecture. Almost nothing 
is known of the behavior associated with the details of nest-building. 
* Manuscript received by the editor February 20, 1970. 
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