''Apoica'' is a genus of

eusocial Eusociality ( Greek 'good' and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations wit ...

paper wasp Paper wasps are a type of Eusociality, social vespid wasps. The term is typically used to refer to members of the Vespidae, vespid subfamily Polistinae, though it often colloquially includes members of the subfamilies Vespinae (hornets and yel ...

found throughout the Central and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

. These wasps are truly

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

, carrying out their

foraging Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Foraging theory is a branch of behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavi ...

activities after the setting of the sun. They prefer to construct their nests, which have an open comb like many paper wasps, under large leaves, or in shrubs. During the day, wasps covering the comb fan their wings to cool the nest, keeping it at a suitable temperature for larval development. When attacking

prey Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not ki ...

, ''Apoica'' release a drop of venom from their stings, which in turn attracts any nearby wasps to attack.

Species

*'' Apoica albimacula'' (Fabricius) *'' Apoica ambracarina'' Pickett *'' Apoica arborea'' Saussure *''

Apoica flavissima ''Apoica flavissima'' is a paper wasp found primarily in South America. The species is distinguishable by its light coloring, unique single comb nests, and nocturnal nature. A notable feature of this species is the size dimorphism between queens ...

'' Van der Vecht *'' Apoica gelida'' Van der Vecht *''

Apoica pallens The Central American paper wasp (''Apoica pallens'') is a nocturnality, nocturnal eusociality, eusocial wasp (family (biology), family Vespidae). It is famous for its swarm based emigration behavior, and is native to the lowlands of Central and ...

'' (Fabricius) *'' Apoica pallida'' (Olivier) *'' Apoica strigata'' Richards *'' Apoica thoracica'' Buysson *'' Apoica traili'' (Cameron) *'' Apoica ujhelyii'' (Ducke)

References

Pickett, K. M. and J. W. Wenzel. 2007
Revision and cladistic analysis of the nocturnal social wasp genus, ''Apoica'' Lepeletier (Hymenoptera: Vespidae; Polistinae, Epiponini)
''American Museum Novitates'', Number 3562, 30 pp. Vespidae Hymenoptera genera {{Vespidae-stub