Vespidae: Wasps of Hawai'i I

Vespidae, is a large family of wasps, encompassing nearly 5000 cosmopolitan species.  This family is very diverse and has a range extending across most of the world, in a variety of terrestrial habitats.  Vespidae includes most eusocial wasps, in which a colony has caste differences.  In these colonies the queen mates with reproductive males, while the soldiers and workers create comfortable living situations for the offspring.  Solitary wasps also exist within Vespidae.  An endemic and very common genus of wasp in Hawai'i is Odynerus. Odynerus wasps, along with many other endemic species, play an important role in pollination of plants and keeping herbaceous species in check.    However, they are unders constant threat due to competition with non-native wasps, predation, and loss of habitat.  Therefore, it is very important that specimens from the UH Insect Museum be transcribed!  The locality information can give us valuable insight into how distribution and abundance has changed over the years. This expedition of 557 tasks is fully transcribed and validated. This data resource is harvested periodically into the main occurrence index.