#and literally don't know why tumblr is still so nonfunctional that posts made via mobile can't be edited from a laptop

[firelord-frowny]

Lmao soooooo

I’ve been focusing on wasps in my lil layman’s Backyard Bug Enthusiast studies/documentation, and I took some shots of this wasp last summer.

You can see that I got, uh, pretty close.

Most hymenopterids are pretty non-aggressive as long as you don’t attack them. The obvious exceptions include pretty much the entire hornet family, which includes yellowjackets.

It so happens that some paper wasps, which aren’t aggressive, look A LOT like yellowjackets. So much so that I literally thought until very recently that they were interchangeable terms for the same species. But, as it turns out, they’re VERY different lmaooo.

So, I’m getting all these up close shots of this “paper wasp” with the intention of trying to figure out what its exact species is. I’m googling, I’m looking at state resources for identification of common hymenopterids. The only wasps I can find with this color scheme are two species of paper wasps: the eastern paper wasp and the european paper wasp, and two species of yellow jackets: the european yellowjacket, and the eastern yellowjacket.

However, NONE of those species feature the striping seen on this specimen’s thorax (the thorax is the body segment between the head and the abdomen). Instead, they have a more plain, black pattern with few yellow markings.

So, I dunno WHY exactly, but I assumed that it must be a less common paper wasp species, and I continued my research to that effect.

I came up empty.

So I finally decided, mostly just out of curiosity and not because I thought I’d find a match, to look up some of the lesser known YELLOWJACKET species in the region.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

It’s a southern yellowjacket, y’all.

DO YOU REAALIIIIIZZEEEEE HOW CLOSE I HAVE BEEN GETTING TO THESE THINGS????? Oh my god!!! Ive been gambling with my fucking life!! Ok not my life but i’ve been gambling with my physical comfort!

Omgggg. They build nests around the yard and on the house/deck and my mom always destroys them and I’m always like, moooooooom, leave them alooooone, they’re just friendly little paper waspsssss!!!

For once i am GLAD my mom ignores my Bug Advice omggggg! I’m a hack!! A charlatan! A fraud! Shame!!!