Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Polistes exclamans(!)

This is a pretty extravagant paper wasp. I saw my first ever last year. And not too many since.
iNaturalist and bugguide.net calls them Guinea Paper Wasps. Bugguide sometimes gives an explanation of both binomial and common name, but the origin of Guinea here is obscure. Kratzer’s Social Wasps of North America calls them Coral Wasps.

mthew

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