About Ropalidia fasciata (Fabricius, 1804)
Ropalidia fasciata (Fabricius, 1804) has a red-brown body with yellow stripes, plus additional black and yellow markings. Its color pattern varies across individuals, with black markings appearing to different degrees. Queen-like and worker-like members of this species cannot be told apart by physical traits, and are instead distinguished by their behavior. Within its range, R. fasciata is consistently distributed across grassland areas, and mainly lives in fields invaded by the sugarcane relative Miscanthus sinensis. These wasps prefer to build their nests underneath the leaves of this plant. Colony members of R. fasciata regularly share food with each other. One wasp transfers nectar or water mouth-to-mouth to another via regurgitation. This food sharing occurs between individuals that have not eaten recently, but individuals will touch mouthparts even when there is no food to transfer. In many similar wasp species, liquid food sharing typically reinforces the colony's dominance hierarchy, but in R. fasciata, this behavior acts as a simple method of nutrition sharing or even a greeting, and is not related to dominance.
