Abstract
This review deals with defensive and aggressive behaviors of social wasps against mammalian and insect nest intruders, and describes (1) major features of the life history, (2) predators and parasitoids attacking the colony, (3) mechanisms of defensive behavior against colony predators, (4) factors affecting the degree of defensive and aggressive behaviors, and (5) wasp stings in Japan. The degree of guard, warning, threat and attack exhibited by workers is dependent upon a number of conditions, including (1) species differences (2) colony size, (3) state of colony growth, (4) colony history, (5) hornet predation, (6) queenright or orphaned colony, (7) day or night, and (8) geographical distribution, and all of these conditions are usually interrelated. The relative aggressiveness estimated by these measurable factors in various vespid wasps is ordered approximately as follows : Polistinae; Polistes rothneyi > P. snelleni ≧ Parapolybia varia ≧ Pp. indica > P. chinensis ≧ P. jadwigae ≧ Ropalidia fasciata ≧ R. marginata ≧ P. nipponensis ≧ P. riparius > P. japonicus. Vespinae; Vespa mandarinia ≧ V. simillima ≧ V. dybowskii ≧ V. crabro > V. affinis ≧ Vespula shidai > Vl. flaviceps ≧ Vl. vulgaris ≧ Dolichovespula media ≧ D. pacifica ≧ D. saxonica > Vl. rufa > V. analis > V. ducalis, though no accurate technique has been developed to measure the intensity of defensive activity of social wasps in each colony.
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