page_title: Polistes sulcifer
section_title: Colony cycle
hierarchical_section_title: Polistes sulcifer / Colony cycle
caption_attribution_description: Polistes dominulus, European paper wasps in Western Australia.
context_page_description: Polistes sulcifer is a species of paper wasp in the genus Polistes that is found in Italy and Croatia. It is one of only three known Polistes obligate social parasites, sometimes referred to as "cuckoo paper wasps", and its host is the congeneric species Polistes dominula. As an obligate social parasite, this species has lost the ability to build nests, and relies on the host workers to raise its brood. P. sulcifer females use brute force, followed by chemical mimicry in order to successfully usurp a host nest and take over as the queen.
context_section_description: P. sulcifer is a permanent workerless species, and consists only of reproductive males and females. Because P. sulcifer is an obligate social parasite, its cycle depends heavily on that of its host species P. dominula, also known as the yellow paper wasp. As mentioned previously, P. sulcifer queens (mated females) overwinter at high altitudes. Come May, they emerge. They tend to overwinter for a longer period of time than their host P. dominula, which emerges in April. This ensures that the parasites reach the host nest at the optimal time: just before worker emergence, when only the host foundresses are in the nest, leading to an easier invasion. Once a queen P. sulcifer has successfully invaded a nest, the host nest is built up by the host workers after their emergence in early summer. P. sulcifer has an annual cycle, and it has been shown that parasitic members only stay in the host nests for around 50 days. After emergence of the P. sulcifer reproductive individuals, mating occurs, and fertilized females overwinter while males die off.
caption: Nest of the Yellow Paper Wasp, P. dominula, host to the cuckoo wasp
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