Mischocyttarus mexicanus

Description

Mischocyttarus mexicanus (de Saussure) is a New World paper wasp that exhibits facultative eusocial behavior and includes at least two subspecies living in the southern United States and Central America. This social wasp species is a good model for studying the selective advantage of different nesting tactics within a single species. M. mexicanus females can form nests both as individuals and as members of a colony, and are even known to switch between these two nesting strategies throughout their life, which is an unusual phenomenon in the field of social biology. Individuals in a colony have particular social roles that are plastic, as opposed to rigid castes, and brood parasitism and usurpation have been observed between unrelated conspecifics. They nest in a variety of types of plants and human constructions, although they have most frequently been observed in palm trees, and they are known to interact with a number of other species as prey, competitors over resources, or foragers.