1970 ] 
Jeanne — Nests 
67 
Richards and Richards, 1951, and the references they cite), and 
both are stelocyttarous, rectinidal and calyptodomous, meaning the 
combs are suspended horizontally one below the other by pillars 
and are surrounded by an envelope. 
The nests of six of the eleven species of subgenus Gymnopolybia 
are known, though adequate descriptions seem to exist for only four. 
All are stelocyttarous and gymnodomous, that is the combs are sus- 
pended by pillars and are not surrounded by an envelope. They are 
built in hollow trees or other sheltered places. The architecture of 
the S. ( G.) testacea nest described here most closely resembles that 
of S. ( G.) pallipes and S. ( G.) cajennensis, which build semi-cylin- 
drical interconnected combs hung vertically by their edges (Richards 
and Richards, 1951, and cited references). S. (G.) vicina and 
S. ( G.J meridionalis hang their combs horizontally, each one sus- 
pended from the one above by many paper pillars (R. von Ihering, 
1904). 
The marked curving of the combs around a vertical axis seems 
to be the rule in S. pallipes , cajennensis and probably testacea as 
well. The effect is to stiffen the combs, making them much less likely 
to bend along a horizontal axis. Such a configuration may have been 
evolved to reduce nest damage due to wind when the nests are con- 
structed in exposed situations, as was the nest of S. testacea. 
As far as I am aware, the 6,466 adults of this colony make it the 
most populous colony of Stelopolybia ever collected, and it is among 
the largest colonies of any neotropical wasp. The above-mentioned 
colony of S. pallipes var. bequaerti collected by Rau had 1965 adults, 
and Richards and Richards (1951) describe taking a nest of S. 
fulvo-fasciata in Guyana with 1409 adults (many more escaped). 
Eight colonies of S. pallens collected by Richards and Richards in 
Guyana contained between 25 and 390 adults each. The largest 
colony of any New World polistine wasp on record is one of 
Brachygastra mellifica collected near Brownsville, Texas, with about 
15,000 individuals (Schwarz, 1929). Naumann (1968) reported 
seeing a colony of the same species with about 10,000 adults (no 
locality was given). Richards and Richards report taking a nest of 
Protopolybia pumila in Guyana with 7,087 individuals. 
These figures, of course, do not necessarily indicate maximum 
mature colony size. If the colony was collected during the day, many 
foragers may have been gone from the nest. In many cases in the 
literature a good portion of the adult population escaped during 
collection and were not counted. More fundamentally, the popula- 
