Non-native European hornet, Vespa crabro, is widely distributed in the United States east of the Mississippi River. Occurrences of V. crabro to the west of the Mississippi River are comparatively sparse. The majority of documented specimens from the “Trans-Mississippi” region of the U.S. are primarily from the Ozarks Physiographic Province in Arkansas, Missouri and eastern Oklahoma, with only sporadic reports of solitary specimens from Arizona, California, Kansas, Louisiana, and Wisconsin. This patchy geographic distribution in the southern and southwestern United States suggests that V. crabro may be restricted by the upper lethal thermal limit of the species (44°C), which can approach summertime temperatures in those regions.

Molecular techniques, such as DNA Barcoding, are useful in species identification. BOLDSystems, or Barcode of Life Data System, is an open repository database developed by the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) that holds millions of sequences. This online workbench and database groups and organizes molecular and morphological information, and makes the data available to scientific community. One limitation of BOLDSystems data has been the reliability and accuracy of the species identifications. To evaluate usefulness of BOLDSystems data, we examined 229 specimens in the genus Alloxysta Förster, 1869 (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea: Figitidae: Charipinae) borrowed from BOLDSystems. In addition to evaluating the quality available COI sequences, we also examined morphological characteristics from primarily lateral habitus images of the 229 vouchers and provide recommendations for improvement. We found some specimens were misidentified and discovered at least one new species among them. At the end of the study, we provided here recommendations for improvement and incorporated our results from this study via the database portal. Our results indicate that data on BOLD and other such databases require well-trained taxonomists to verify species determinations based on primarily molecular data. It is important that molecular and morphological information be combined in order to improve species identification.

The species of North American pollen wasps are cataloged.

Ethological studies in the field of arthropods have addressed various perspectives, although specific knowledge related to chilopods has been notably limited. This work addresses this gap through exhaustive research carried out in the town of Barú, Colombia. It focuses on the behavior of a chilopod belonging to the genus Otostigmus (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha: Scolopendridae), revealing a response mechanism against threats: the simulation of being dead. This tactic, identified as tonic immobility or thanatosis, constitutes a novel finding in the behavior of chilopods, enriching our understanding of the defensive strategies adopted by these arthropods. Through field observation, we document the process by which the chilopod exhibits this behavior in situations of perceived danger. This contribution not only expands our knowledge of chilopod ethology, but also highlights the importance of the diversity of behavorial responses in these organisms, underlining the complexity of their interactions with the environment.

Genetically determined melanic color forms of the spittlebug Philaenus spumarius (L.) absorb more incident radiation, reach higher equilibrium temperatures, and are more frequent in cooler, higher latitude populations. Across five Northeastern Minnesota localities from 1974 to 2021 mean September temperature increased 2.70°C, while melanic dorsal color forms decreased significantly in frequency, from 22.1% to 14.2 % in females, and 12.7% to 7.3% in males. The frequency of dark ventral abdominal pleurites decreased in both males and females, and in males the frequency of TYP, the more pigmented of the two local non-melanic color forms, decreased relative to the alternative POP phenotype. In Tinley Park, Illinois, where temperature increased 1.85°C from 1971 to 2021, the frequency of MAR, the only common dark color form, did not change, but the relative frequency of TYP versus POP decreased in both males and females. These results suggest that: 1) northern melanic color forms are maintained by selection for thermal melanism, selection that has relaxed as a result of warming climate; 2) MAR frequencies are determined by other forms of selection, possibly selection for warning coloration; and 3) climate warming may shift the phenotypic balance between TYP and POP toward POP. If these changes are representative of broader geographical areas, the P. spumarius polymorphism may prove to be a useful barometer of climate change.

The genus Polistes Latreille 1802 is the only cosmopolitan genus in the social Vespidae. In this paper, a new species of the genus is described, Polistes (Epicnemius) orlandoi Somavilla & Carpenter sp. n., collected in Amazonas State, Brazil. The male genitalia are described and comparative remarks are given.