Polistes gallicus

Taxobox | name = "Polistes gallicus"

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image_width = 250px
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Hymenoptera
familia = Vespidae
subfamilia = Polistinae
genus = "Polistes"
species = "P. gallicus"
binomial = "Polistes gallicus"
binomial_authority = Linnaeus, 1761
synonyms =
*"Polistes foederata" Kohl 1898
*"Polistes gallicus" var. "mongolicus" Buysson 1911
*"Polistes omissus" (Weyrauch 1938)

"Polistes gallicus" (also historically referred to as "Polistes foederatus") is a fairly common species of European paper wasp, almost indistinguishable from the European paper wasp, "Polistes dominula", with which it had long been confused. Nearly every reference to "P. gallicus" prior to 1985 was actually referring to "P. dominula"; due to the great similarity between species, however, many published studies for which there are no vouchered reference specimens cannot be reliably assigned to either species. Most of the literature that pertains to actual "P. gallicus" uses the junior synonym, "P. foederatus", a name which still occasionally appears in the literature despite the known error (e.g., in O'Donnel [O'Donnell, S. (1998) REPRODUCTIVE CASTE DETERMINATION IN EUSOCIAL WASPS (HYMENOPTERA: VESPIDAE). Annual Review of Entomology Vol. 43: 323-346 (doi:10.1146/annurev.ento.43.1.323)] ).

References