HYMENOPTERA :: Vespidae :: Polistinae :: Polistes

Polistes gigas (Kirby, 1826)

棕馬蜂

Appearance

Workers body length 21–28 mm, queens 25–28 mm, males: 27–45 mm.

Uniformly dark brown including wings. Legs rather long. Female clypeus with strong puncturations and prominent frontal keel. Dorsal mesepisternal groove absent; epicnemial carina present. Male head strongly enlarged. Mandibles large, sickle-shaped.

Biology

Specialised in caterpillars. Adults feed on tree sap (e.g. Citrus). Nest exposed or sheltered from light, asymmetrical and elongated paper comb construction with eccentric pedicel. Cells unspecialised, i.e. there is no major difference in size for queens and workers, but male cells are exceptionally large. The nest material is composed of masticated plant fibre. The white cocoon caps, later maculated with brown, are rather big affairs, densely woven, opaque and protrude by 5–10 mm from the cell rims, those of males even more. The pedicel, the apical part of comb and a portion of the substrate is smeared with a hard coating secretion. The colonies are generally small containing 20–80 cells. Males fight violently in territory combat.

Distribution

China, India, Vietnam

Sources

Barthélémy, C. A. Provisional Identification Guide to the Social Vespids of Hong Kong (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Available online: http://insectahk.com

Barthélémy C & Guénard B. 2025. An annotated and illustrated checklist of Hong Kong aculeate wasps (Hymenoptera: Apoid wasps; Pompilioidea; Scolioidea; Thynnoidea; Tiphioidea; Vespoidea; Chrysidoidea). Insecta Mundi 1115: 1–230.

Carpenter J. 1996. Distributional Checklist of Species of the Genus Polistes (Hymenoptera: Vespidae; Polistinae, Polistini). American Museum Novitates. 3188: 1–39. 

Focus Group on Status and Trends and Red List Assessment Final Report. (2014). Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. https://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/conservation/Con_hkbsap/bsap_links_to_resources/files/Final_Report_Red_List_FG.pdf

GBIF.org (27 May 2024) GBIF Occurrence https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.2kuh8u

Lee, J.X.Q & Starr, C.K. 2007. Violent Combat Among Polistes gigas Males (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Sociobiology 50(2): 337–342.

Yamane, S. 1996. Ecological factors influencing the colony cycle of Polistes wasps. in Natural History and evolution of Paper-wasps; Ed. S. Turillazzi & M.J. West-Eberhard, Oxford University Press, 400pp.