Invertebrates

Wasp

Vespidae and relatives · also called wasps

Not Evaluated carnivoreomnivore Temperate grassland Temperate forest Desert

Almost everything people think about wasps comes from a handful of species — the yellow-and-black social wasps that build paper nests and crash picnics in August. Those are a tiny fraction of the group. Most wasps are solitary hunters, many are smaller than a grain of rice, and together they are one of the main reasons the world is not knee-deep in caterpillars.

Overview

“Wasp” covers the stinging and parasitic members of the order Hymenoptera that are not bees or ants — though on a strict family tree, bees and ants are themselves specialised wasps. There are tens of thousands of species, on every continent except Antarctica. The social wasps and hornets (family Vespidae) are the visible minority; the great majority are solitary predators or parasitoids.

The sting, and its origin

Only females sting, because the sting evolved from the ovipositor, the egg-laying tube. In the huge group of parasitic wasps that organ is still used for its original job — drilling into wood or into a host insect to lay an egg, sometimes through an ovipositor several times the wasp’s length.

Hunters and parasites

A solitary wasp female stocks a nest with paralysed prey — spiders, caterpillars, crickets, cicadas — one egg per victim, then leaves. The tarantula hawks take spiders many times their weight and deliver one of the most painful stings of any insect. Hundreds of thousands of parasitoid species develop inside other insects and are the top natural control on aphids and caterpillars.

Figs

Nearly every wild fig species is pollinated by its own species of fig wasp, which crawls in through a tiny pore, pollinates, lays eggs, and dies inside — an 80-million-year partnership neither partner can do without.

Status

Wasps as a group are Not Evaluated. Most are common, but evidence is growing of decline alongside the wider loss of insects, from habitat loss and pesticides, even as a few social wasps and the Asian hornet spread as invaders.

Wasp: common questions

What is the point of wasps?

Ecologically they do at least three big jobs. As predators and parasitoids they are one of the main forces keeping other insects in check, and the parasitic wasps in particular are the principal natural enemies of caterpillars, aphids, whitefly, and many crop pests, doing pest control worth billions each year and underpinning much biological control in farming. Many adult wasps visit flowers and pollinate them, and some plant groups, most famously the figs, depend entirely on specific wasps. And wasps are food for birds, reptiles, mammals, and other insects. A world without wasps would see far more herbivorous insects and far more plant damage.

Why do wasps become a nuisance in late summer?

It is a change in the social wasp colony's needs. Through spring and early summer the workers hunt insects to feed the developing larvae, and in return the larvae secrete a sugary fluid the adults consume, so the workers stay out in fields and hedgerows hunting. By late summer the queen stops laying, no new larvae need feeding, and that sugar supply dries up. The adult workers, still alive and now with nothing to do, go looking for sugar elsewhere, which is when they show up at picnics, orchards, bins, and fizzy drinks. They are also more likely to sting then, partly through sheer numbers and partly because the colony is winding down.

What is the difference between a wasp and a bee?

Bees are a specialised group of wasps that switched from feeding their young on insects to feeding them on pollen and nectar. The practical differences follow from that. Bees are usually hairier, often with branched body hairs and broad hind legs or a belly brush for carrying pollen, while wasps are typically slimmer, smoother, and more sharply waisted. Bee larvae eat pollen and nectar; most wasp larvae eat animal prey. Bees are major pollinators, whereas wasps are mainly predators, scavengers, and parasitoids, though some also pollinate. Both can sting, but a honeybee's barbed sting stays in the wound and kills the bee, while a wasp's smooth sting can be used repeatedly.

Are wasps really in decline like bees?

The data are thinner than for bees, because wasps have been much less studied and are less popular, but the signs point the same way. Long-term insect monitoring in Europe and elsewhere that has picked up wasps shows falling abundance and diversity in step with the wider decline of flying insects, and the causes are thought to be similar, the loss of flower-rich and undisturbed habitat, pesticide use, and climate change. This matters because wasps provide pest control and pollination that are hard to replace. At the same time, a small number of social wasps thrive around people and as invasive species, which can mask the losses among the many quiet solitary and parasitic species.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published November 8, 2026. Last updated November 8, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Vespidae and relatives
Diet: Adult wasps feed themselves mainly on nectar, sap, fruit juice, and honeydew for energy, while the larvae are usually fed on animal protein, either live prey paralysed by the mother or chewed-up caught insects, and social wasps also scavenge meat and are drawn to human food and drink in late summer
Mostly solitary, not paper nests: The familiar yellow-and-black social wasps in their paper nests are a small minority, since the great majority of the tens of thousands of wasp species are solitary, each female provisioning a nest of a few cells with paralysed prey and then leaving, with no colony and often no interest in stinging people
Bees and ants are wasps: Ants evolved from within the wasps, and bees are a branch of the hunting wasps that switched to feeding their young pollen instead of insects, so a strict family tree treats bees and ants as specialised wasps, and true wasps are simply the members that kept the ancestral predatory or parasitic habits
The sting is a modified egg-laying tube: In wasps, bees, and ants the sting evolved from the ovipositor, the tube females use to place eggs, which is why only females can sting, and in the parasitic wasps the same organ is still used to drill into hosts or wood and lay eggs, sometimes through an ovipositor several times the body length
Parasitic wasps are staggeringly diverse: Hundreds of thousands of wasp species, many tinier than a pinhead, develop as parasitoids inside or on the eggs, larvae, or bodies of other insects and spiders, eventually killing the host, and they are the single most important group holding down populations of caterpillars, aphids, and other plant pests
Some hunt prey far larger than themselves: The tarantula hawks sting and paralyse spiders many times their weight, drag them to a burrow, and seal one in with a single egg, and the sting is rated among the most painful of any insect, while other wasps specialise in cicadas, crickets, caterpillars, or cockroaches
Fig wasps and the figs that need them: Almost every wild fig species is pollinated by its own species of tiny fig wasp, which enters the developing fig through a narrow pore, pollinates the flowers, lays eggs, and dies inside, a partnership around 80 million years old without which neither the fig nor the wasp could reproduce
Range: Every continent except Antarctica and virtually every land habitat, from tropical forest and desert to farmland, gardens, moorland, and city centres, with different wasps specialised as predators, scavengers, pollinators, gall-formers, or parasitoids, and nests built in soil, wood, plant stems, mud, paper, or the bodies of hosts.
Conservation status: Not Evaluated ≈ Not assessed as a group of tens of thousands of species, and most wasps are common, but there is growing evidence of decline in wasp abundance and diversity alongside the broader loss of insects, driven by habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change, while a few social wasps, such as the German and common wasps and the Asian hornet, have become damaging invaders far outside their native ranges in the wild