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Burnham — Social Insects in Fossil Record 
97 
Figure 2. Vespoid wasp from Eocene of British Columbia. Original photograph 
of specimen in Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Length of forewing, 12 mm. 
Piton (1940), in a thesis on the Eocene fossil beds of Menat, 
France, described an assemblage of Vespoidea found in this sedi- 
mentary deposit. However, because the six specimens he described 
are all assigned to extant genera, and do not show the characters 
essential for such generic designation, Piton’s taxonomic determina- 
tions are perforce questionable. Particularly dubious is his place- 
ment of one specimen in the family Vespidae, genus Polistes. 
Because the morphological features necessary for accurate taxo- 
nomic placement are obscured in this fossil, I prefer to place it in 
Vespoidea incertae sedis. The remaining five specimens are assigned 
to the Eumenidae incertae sedis. 
Another vespoid species was recently recovered from a Middle 
Eocene deposit in British Columbia (M. V. H. Wilson, 1977). Al- 
though not formally described, the fossil clearly shows the charac- 
teristic venation of the vespoid complex (see Fig. 2), but could be 
either a vespid or a eumenid. Of course, one has no way of stating 
