Dictionary:
wasp (wŏsp, wôsp)  |
Any of numerous social or solitary insects, chiefly of the superfamilies Vespoidea and Sphecoidea, having a slender body with a constricted abdomen, two pairs of membranous wings, mouths adapted for biting or sucking, and in the females an ovipositor often modified as a sting.
[Middle English waspe, from Old English wæps, wæsp.]
waspy wasp'y adj.| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: wasp |
For more information on wasp, visit Britannica.com.
| English Folklore: wasps |
These seem to have been little regarded by English folklore. Kill the first wasp you see and you will have good luck and freedom from enemies all the year is reported from Northamptonshire in N&Q in 1850, and occasionally since then, but this is more commonly said of butterflies and sometimes of
Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: wasp |
Social Wasps
In social wasp colonies there are usually three castes: the egg-laying queens (one or more per colony), the workers, or sexually undeveloped females, and the drones, or males. Social wasps build nests of a coarse, papery material, prepared by masticating wood fiber. The eggs are deposited in the compartments, or cells, of the nest, where they develop into larvae and then pupae, emerging as adults. Adult social wasps feed chiefly on nectar and plant sap but feed the larvae with masticated animal food. In temperate regions a colony lasts a single season, the drones and workers dying in the fall. The mated queens take shelter during the winter and in spring lay eggs and start new colonies. In the tropics colonies continue indefinitely, dividing when they grow very large. The paper wasps (Polistes), of nearly worldwide distribution, usually hang their nests, consisting of a single comb (layer of cells), from eaves, branches, or other shelters. The hornets and yellow jackets (Vespa), found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, build a large, round nest of many combs, covered with a paper sheath; in some species this nest is built underground.
Solitary Wasps
Among the solitary wasps, each species usually favors a particular type of prey. The female seals a single egg in a nest provided with paralyzed prey on which the developing larva feeds. In many species the nest is in a burrow or small hole dug by the female. The jug-shaped nests of the potter, or mason, wasps (Eumenes) of Europe and North America are made of mud and fastened to plants. Often seen under bridges and eaves are the "organ-pipe" nests of the mud-dauber wasps (Sceliphron), consisting of long, narrow, adjacent cells of mud. Other solitary wasps are the tarantula hawks (Pepsis) and cicada killers (Sphecus) of the SW United States, which hunt prey much larger than themselves.
Parasitic Wasps
Some wasps are parasitic. The cuckoo wasps (family Chrysididae), of worldwide distribution, are brilliantly colored wasps that lay their eggs in other wasps' nests. The ichneumon flies are wasps that lay their eggs in the larvae of other insects. The gall wasps (see gall) lay eggs in plant tissues. Wasps that prey on harmful insects have been introduced in various regions to control these pests.
Classification
The name wasp is sometimes restricted to the so-called true wasps, members of the superfamilies Vespoidae and Sphecoidae. Wasps are classified in the phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Hymenoptera.
| Veterinary Dictionary: wasp |
Stinging insect of the order Hymenoptera. There is local irritation at the site of the sting. Animals may be seriously affected if they eat fruit that is infested with wasps at the time. Wasp stings contain histamine, serotonin and ‘wasp kinin’ plus hyaluronidase and phospholipase. Unlike bees, wasps may sting several times.
| Notes on Drama: WASP |
Contents: Plot Summary Characters Themes Style Critical Overview Criticism Sources Further Reading |
Steve Martin
1996
Steve Martin's one act play, WASP, was first published in New York City in 1996. In this play, Martin presents his view of the traditional culture of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (hereafter referred to as W.A.S.P.s). The play's family is not an individual family, rather it is a family whose characteristics refer to typical W.A.S.P. values. The play's setting, a "fifties house," possibly indicates Martin's sense that the 1950s was the last decade in which this culture flourished in the United States in its traditional form.
As an exploration of traditional White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture, WASP joins a great deal of art and scholarship on the subject. W.A.S.P. culture, in its U.S. (as opposed to British) variant, is interesting to scholars and artists for many reasons. The major reason is that W.A.S.P. values have significantly shaped U.S. culture. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants were the dominant ethnicity when the nation was in its infancy, and this culture remained influential for a very long time afterwards.
This play touches on Martin's familiar themes. For example, he shows that the father is the dominant parent in the household. The mother's lesser status points to the gender inequality of traditional W.A.S.P. culture, of which Martin's play is critical. WASP also makes much of its characters' secret yearnings for passion and intimacy. With this, Martin points to another common criticism of traditional W.A.S.P. culture, namely its valuing of emotional reticence; critics say this is an unhealthy repression.
Martin's first play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, fared much better than WASP did with audiences and critics. Nonetheless, as critics say, WASP has its strong points. It remains in print along with other plays by Martin in an edition published by Samuel French, Inc., in 1998.
| Wikipedia: Wasp |
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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008) |
| Wasp | |
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| Aleiodes indiscretus parasitizing a gypsy moth caterpillar | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Suborder | |
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Apocrita |
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The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor ant[1]. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their numbers, or natural biocontrol. Parasitic wasps are increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they prey mostly on pest insects and have little impact on crops.
Contents |
The majority of wasp species (well over 100,000 species) are "parasitic" (technically known as parasitoids), and the ovipositor is used simply to lay eggs, often directly into the body of the host. The most familiar wasps belong to Aculeata, a division of Apocrita, whose ovipositors are adapted into a venomous sting, though a great many aculeate species do not sting. Aculeata also contains ants and bees, and many wasps are commonly mistaken for bees, and vice-versa. In a similar respect, insects called "velvet ants" (the family Mutillidae) are technically wasps.
The suborder Symphyta, known commonly as sawflies, differ from members of Apocrita by lacking a sting, and having a broader connection between the mesosoma and metasoma. In addition to this, Symphyta larvae are mostly herbivorous and "caterpillarlike", whereas those of Apocrita are largely predatory or parasitoids.
A much narrower and simpler but popular definition of the term wasp is any member of the aculeate family Vespidae, which includes (among others) the genera known in North America as yellowjackets (Vespula and Dolichovespula) and hornets (Vespa); in many countries outside of the Western Hemisphere, the vernacular usage of wasp is even further restricted to apply strictly to yellowjackets (e.g., the "common wasp").
The various species of wasps fall into one of two main categories: solitary wasps and social wasps. Adult solitary wasps generally live and operate alone, and most do not construct nests (below); all adult solitary wasps are fertile. By contrast, social wasps exist in colonies numbering up to several thousand strong and build nests—but in some cases not all of the colony can reproduce. In the more advanced species, just the wasp queen and male wasps can mate, whilst the majority of the colony is made up of sterile female workers.
The following characteristics are present in most wasps:
Wasps are critically important in natural biocontrol. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that is a predator or parasite upon it. Parasitic wasps are also increasingly used in agricultural pest control. Wasps also constitute an important part of the food chain.
In wasps, as in other Hymenoptera, sexes are significantly genetically different. Females have a diploid (2n) number of chromosomes and come about from fertilized eggs. Males, in contrast, have a haploid (n) number of chromosomes and develop from an unfertilized egg. Wasps store sperm inside their body and control its release for each individual egg as it is laid; if a female wishes to produce a male egg, she simply lays the egg without fertilizing it. Therefore, under most conditions in most species, wasps have complete voluntary control over the sex of their offspring.
Anatomically, there is a great deal of variation between different types of wasp. Like all insects, wasps have a hard exoskeleton covering their three main body parts. These parts are known as the head, metasoma and mesosoma. Wasps also have a constricted region joining the first and second segments of the abdomen (the first segment is part of the mesosoma, the second is part of the metasoma) known as the petiole. Like all insects, wasps have three sets of two legs. In addition to their compound eyes, wasps also have several simple eyes known as ocelli. These are typically arranged in a triangular formation just forward of an area of the head known as the vertex.
It is possible to distinguish between certain wasp species genders based on the number of divisions on their antennae. Male Yellowjacket wasps for example have 13 divisions per antenna, while females have 12. Males can in some cases be differentiated from females by virtue of the fact that the upper region of the male's mesosoma (called the tergum) consists of an additional terga. The total number of terga is typically six. The difference between sterile female worker wasps and queens also varies between species but generally the queen is noticeably larger than both males and other females.
Wasps can be differentiated from bees, which have a flattened hind basitarsus. Unlike bees, wasps generally lack plumose hairs. They vary in the number and size of hairs they have between species.
Generally wasps are parasites or parasitoids as larvae, and feed only on nectar as adults. Many wasps are predatory, using other insects (often paralyzed) as food for their larvae. A few social wasps are omnivorous, feeding on a variety of fallen fruit, nectar, and carrion. Some of these social wasps, such as yellowjackets, may scavenge for dead insects to provide for their young. In many social species the larvae provide sweet secretions that are fed to the adults.
In parasitic species, the first meals are almost always provided by the animal that the adult wasp used as a host for its young. Adult male wasps sometimes visit flowers to obtain nectar to feed on in much the same manner as honey bees. Occasionally, some species, such as yellowjackets, invade honey bee nests and steal honey and/or brood.[citation needed]
With most species, adult parasitic wasps themselves do not take any nutrients from their prey, and, much like bees, butterflies, and moths, those that do feed as adults typically derive all of their nutrition from nectar. Parasitic wasps are typically parasitoids, and extremely diverse in habits, many laying their eggs in inert stages of their host (egg or pupa), or sometimes paralyzing their prey by injecting it with venom through their ovipositor. They then insert one or more eggs into the host or deposit them upon the host externally. The host remains alive until the parasitoid larvae are mature, usually dying either when the parasitoids pupate, or when they emerge as adults.
The type of nest produced by wasps can depend on the species and location. Many social wasps produce paper pulp nests on trees, in attics, holes in the ground or other such sheltered areas with access to the outdoors. By contrast solitary wasps are generally parasitic or predatory and only the latter build nests at all. Unlike honey bees, wasps have no wax producing glands. Many instead create a paper-like substance primarily from wood pulp. Wood fibers are gathered locally from weathered wood, softened by chewing and mixing with saliva. The pulp is then used to make combs with cells for brood rearing. More commonly, nests are simply burrows excavated in a substrate (usually the soil, but also plant stems), or, if constructed, they are constructed from mud.
The nesting habits of solitary wasps are more diverse than those of social wasps. Mud daubers and pollen wasps construct mud cells in sheltered places typically on the side of walls. Potter wasps similarly build vase-like nests from mud, often with multiple cells, attached to the twigs of trees or against walls. Most other predatory wasps burrow into soil or into plant stems, and a few do not build nests at all and prefer naturally occurring cavities, such as small holes in wood. A single egg is laid in each cell, which is sealed thereafter, so there is no interaction between the larvae and the adults, unlike in social wasps. In some species, male eggs are selectively placed on smaller prey, leading to males being generally smaller than females.
The nests of some social wasps, such as hornets, are first constructed by the queen and reach about the size of a walnut before sterile female workers take over construction. The queen initially starts the nest by making a single layer or canopy and working outwards until she reaches the edges of the cavity. Beneath the canopy she constructs a stalk to which she can attach several cells; these cells are where the first eggs will be laid. The queen then continues to work outwards to the edges of the cavity after which she adds another tier. This process is repeated, each time adding a new tier until eventually enough female workers have been born and matured to take over construction of the nest leaving the queen to focus on reproduction. For this reason, the size of a nest is generally a good indicator of approximately how many female workers there are in the colony. Social wasp colonies often have populations exceeding several thousand female workers and at least one queen. Polistes and some related types of paper wasp do not construct their nests in tiers but rather in flat single combs.
Wasps do not reproduce via mating flights like bees. Instead social wasps reproduce between a fertile queen and male wasp; in some cases queens may be fertilized by the sperm of several males. After successfully mating, the male's sperm cells are stored in a tightly packed ball inside the queen. The sperm cells are kept stored in a dormant state until they are needed the following spring. At a certain time of the year (often around autumn), the bulk of the wasp colony dies away, leaving only the young mated queens alive. During this time they leave the nest and find a suitable area to hibernate for the winter.
After emerging from hibernation during early summer, the young queens search for a suitable nesting site. Upon finding an area for their colony, the queen constructs a basic wood fiber nest roughly the size of a walnut into which she will begin to lay eggs.
The sperm that was stored earlier and kept dormant over winter is now used to fertilize the eggs being laid. The storage of sperm inside the female queen allows her to lay a considerable number of fertilized eggs without the need for repeated mating with a male wasp. For this reason a single female queen is capable of building an entire colony from only herself. The queen initially raises the first several sets of wasp eggs until enough sterile female workers exist to maintain the offspring without her assistance. All of the eggs produced at this time are sterile female workers who will begin to construct a more elaborate nest around their queen as they grow in number.
By this time the nest size has expanded considerably and now numbers between several hundred and several thousand wasps. Towards the end of the summer, the queen begins to run out of stored sperm to fertilize more eggs. These eggs develop into fertile males and fertile female queens. The male drones then fly out of the nest and find a mate thus perpetuating the wasp reproductive cycle. In most species of social wasp the young queens mate in the vicinity of their home nest and do not travel like their male counterparts do. The young queens will then leave the colony to hibernate for the winter once the other worker wasps and founder queen have started to die off. After successfully mating with a young queen, the male drones die off as well. Generally, young queens and drones from the same nest do not mate with each other; this ensures more genetic variation within wasp populations, especially considering that all members of the colony are theoretically the direct genetic descendants of the founder queen and a single male drone. In practice, however, colonies can sometimes consist of the offspring of several male drones. Wasp queens generally (but not always) create new nests each year, probably because the weak construction of most nests render them uninhabitable after the winter.
Unlike honey bee queens, wasp queens typically live for only one year. Also queen wasps do not organize their colony or have any raised status and hierarchical power within the social structure. They are more simply the reproductive element of the colony and the initial builder of the nest in those species which construct nests.
Not all social wasps have castes that are physically different in size and structure. In many polistine paper wasps and stenogastrines, for example, the castes of females are determined behaviorally, through dominance interactions, rather than having caste predetermined. All female wasps are potentially capable of becoming a colony's queen and this process is often determined by which female successfully lays eggs first and begins construction of the nest. Evidence suggests that females compete amongst each other by eating the eggs of other rival females. The queen may, in some cases, simply be the female that can eat the largest volume of eggs while ensuring that her own eggs survive (often achieved by laying the most). This process theoretically determines the strongest and most reproductively capable female and selects her as the queen. Once the first eggs have hatched, the subordinate females stop laying eggs and instead forage for the new queen and feed the young; that is, the competition largely ends, with the losers becoming workers, though if the dominant female dies, a new hierarchy may be established with a former "worker" acting as the replacement queen. Polistine nests are considerably smaller than many other social wasp nests, typically housing only around 250 wasps, compared to the several thousand common with yellowjackets, and stenogastrines have the smallest colonies of all, rarely with more than a dozen wasps in a mature colony.
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"wasp". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| Translations: Wasp |
n. - White Anglo-Saxon Protestant; amerikansk: hvid protestantisk person, mellemklasse
Nederlands (Dutch)
wesp, irritant persoon, wit Angelsaksisch persoon
n. - (abrév = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) membre de l'élite des blancs protestant d'origine anglo-saxonne
n. - Angehöriger des weißen amerikanischen Bürgertums
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (εντομ.) σφήκα
abbr. - (ΗΠΑ, καθομ.) (αγγλοσάξονας προτεστάντης) Αμερικανός της άρχουσας τάξης
Italiano (Italian)
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, protestante di origine anglosassone, vespa
Português (Portuguese)
n. - vespa (f) (Zool.)
abbr. - Pilotos de Serviço da Força Aérea Feminina
Español (Spanish)
n. - persona de la clase privilegiada de los EE.UU. (blanco anglosajón y protestante), avispa
n. - blanco anglosajón y protestante
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - geting
abbr. - vit anglosaxisk protestant
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
黄蜂, 易怒的人, 胡蜂
黄蜂, 易怒的人, 胡蜂
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 黃蜂, 易怒的人, 胡蜂
n. - 黃蜂, 易怒的人, 胡蜂
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 장수말벌, 성 잘 내는 사람, 자극하는 것
n. - 와스프(앵글로색슨계 백인 신교도)
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) دابور, زنبور (اختصار) أمريكاني من أصل شمال أوروبي بروتستاني
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - צירעה
n. - אמריקאי לבן פרוטסטנטי ממוצא בריטי, בן המעמד הבינוני העליון המבוסס ובעל הזכויות המיוחדות בארה"ב
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| English Folklore. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Copyright © 2000, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Notes on Drama. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wasp". Read more |
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