Wasp
Wasps first appeared in the fossil record in the Jurassic, and diversified into many surviving superfamilies by the Cretaceous. They are a successful and diverse group of insects with tens of thousands of described species; wasps have spread to all parts of the world except for the polar regions. The largest social wasp is the Asian giant hornet, at up to in length; among the largest solitary wasps is a group of species known as tarantula hawks, along with the giant scoliid of Indonesia ("Megascolia procer"). The smallest wasps are solitary chalcid wasps in the family Mymaridae, including the world's smallest known insect, with a body length of only , and the smallest known flying insect, only long.
Polistes canadensis
Both male and female "Polistes canadensis" have a uniformly light to dark mahogany-brown body, sometimes with the head and thorax of a lighter shade. Its rust colored body gives the red paper wasp its common name. Some feature a yellow apical margin of the first tergum as well. The wings are purplish black, and the veins and stigma are either black or reddish brown. The "Polistes canadensis" is a large-bodied wasp with a wing length ranging from 17.0 to 24.5 mm.
Nests are constructed from plant fibers such as dry grass and dead wood, which like in other paper wasps, that they mix with saliva to create water-resistant nests made out of papery material. These nests are not covered with an envelope and feature hexagonal cells in which eggs are laid and larvae develop. The "Polistes canadensis" colony divides its colony among several combs, with an average size of 30.8 cells per comb. A large, mature but still growing colony has about 838 cells distributed among 38 combs. Combs on vertical (walls and tree trunks) and sloping surfaces (tree limbs) hang with the petiole at the upper end. Colonies on tree trunks tend to add secondary combs above or below the first comb resulting in a linear arrangement. In contrast, nests on horizontal surfaces away from edges (i.e. ceilings) feature eccentric petioles with secondary combs bordering the central primary comb in a semicircular perimeter. No comb has more than one petiole. Petioles average 9.9 mm in length. When combs reach their final size, adult wasps can often step directly from one comb to another; the average distance between petioles of nearby combs is 2.9 cm. Although rare, adjacent combs sometimes grow to touch.