Skip to main content

Lerak paper wasp (Polistes tenebricosus)

Lerak paper wasp (Polistes tenebricosus) is a species of animal in Vespidae, a predator, living in a colony and making nests, usually close to human habitats which may on some occasions be disturbing even though they are not aggressive insects, but will respond if the nest is disturbed.

P. tenebricosus has a dominant black or dark brown color or light brown ring on the abdomen, a rough, shiny and hairless surface. Big black eyes and triangular scissor jaws. A pair of antennas, wide-ranging, dark brown with black tips.

Dlium Lerak paper wasp (Polistes tenebricosus)


A pair of translucent brown wings with a black bone and several dark brown veins. Stomach shaped water droplets, have five rings with spaces of different colors or the same and a pointed tip. Joints legs have small spines.

Lerak paper wasp has four life stages. The creation phase begins when a solitary female or initial group builds a nest by forming petioles on the roof of a house, stone or tree. The nest consists of hexagonal cells with each cell surrounded by six other cells to lay eggs.

Mother females feed the hatched larvae. The larvae grow into adolescents and take on the role of workers in charge of protecting their mother who acts as a queen until their new siblings are born.

The workers phase begins about two months after the colony is formed. These workers are females in charge of looking for food, caring for new larvae and guarding nests.



The reproduction phase begins when reproductive females emerge from brood cells that are different from working females due to the amount of fat deposits and cryoprotectant carbohydrate compounds. Sometimes reproductive males emerge and the two reproduce out of the nest to mate and form separate colonies.

The intermediate phase begins when the behavior of guarding larvae and gathering food decreases, the number of female workers decreases, individual, aggression in the colony increases and social life in the nest is chaotic.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Class: Insecta
Subclass: Pterygota
Order: Hymenoptera
Suborder: Apocrita
Infraorder: Aculeata
Superfamily: Vespoidea
Family: Vespidae
Subfamily: Polistinae
Tribe: Polistini
Genus: Polistes
Subgenus: Gyrostoma
Species: Polistes tenebricosus

Popular Posts

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) manufacture bubble-nets as tools to increase prey intake

NEWS - Humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) create bubble net tools while foraging, consisting of internal tangential rings, and actively control the number of rings, their size, depth and horizontal spacing between the surrounding bubbles. These structural elements of the net increase prey intake sevenfold. Researchers have known that humpback whales create “bubble nets” for hunting, but the new report shows that the animals also manipulate them in a variety of ways to maximize catches. The behavior places humpbacks among the rare animals that make and use their own tools. “Many animals use tools to help them find food, but very few actually make or modify these tools themselves,” said Lars Bejder, director of the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP), University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Humpback whales in southeast Alaska create elaborate bubble nets to catch krill. They skillfully blow bubbles in patterns that form a web with internal rings. They actively control details such ...

Devil's backbone (Euphorbia tithymaloides)

Pokok lipan or devil's-backbone or redbird flower or christmas candle or Pedilanthus tithymaloides ( Euphorbia tithymaloides ) are plant species in Euphorbiaceae, upright, evergreen, gummy shrubs, growing in tropical and subtropical regions. E. tithymaloides likes sandy soils especially with high concentrations of boron, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc. This bush grows to 2.4 m high and 61 cm wide. Simple angiosperm leaves, arranged opposite to the stem where each leaf is sessile with a length of 3.6-7.6 cm. The stem has the tip of a handle that supports a group of flowers that are not scented. Bifid crown and ovoid. The involucral bracts are bright red, irregular in shape and length from 1.1 to 1.3 mm. Hairy male and female pedicels. Seed pods are 7.6 mm long, 8.9 mm wide and ovate with clipped ends. Devil's-backbone generally blooms in mid-spring in the subtropical region and in the dry season in the tropics. Pollination is carried out by ants and birds. ...

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...