Thank you everyone, once again, for the help. She definitely seems more like Polistes metricus than fuscatas, but I appreciate all of the input nonetheless!
Very cool! Polistes are neat
Random question -- are you a biologist? Your username means M* (start, stop) read as translated codons
Hehe, I was wondering when I was going to get questioned about that. I am not employed as a biologist, but I majored in biology in college (focused on plant biology; considering how much I use/will use my degree I'd have been better served focusing on insects!). I chose my username based on my old Reddit account, which I made back in 2016 while I was still considering a career in plant genetics.
Hello again! It seems we've had another warm spell here in Roanoke and we've got a bunch of wasps thinking that it's time to come out of hibernation. This time I've got no idea whether she (?) is a paper wasp, a solitary wasp, or what she could be. Pictures don't really do her justice, but I tried adjusting them a bit to get an idea of her color scheme. One thing that I could not capture on camera but that could prove useful is that, in the sunlight, her wings were iridescent blue/indigo. Thanks in advance for the help!
hello, good job on your find! here's a link to a wasp/bee keeping discord that our fellow member stricky moderates: https://discord.gg/AXrVZWKpin this place you can talk about wasps, bees, and other animals.
Thanks for the link! I'm not much of a Discord person but it seems that is where people are moving toward for serious discussion on niche topics so I'll consider taking a look!
