''Provespa'' is a small genus of

Vespidae The Vespidae are a large (nearly 5000 species), diverse, cosmopolitan family of wasps, including nearly all the known eusocial wasps (such as '' Polistes fuscatus'', '' Vespa orientalis'', and ''Vespula germanica'') and many solitary wasps. Eac ...

, made up of nocturnal

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...

s from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

, sometimes referred to as "night wasps" or "night hornets", though they are not true hornets (genus ''

Vespa Vespa () is an Italian brand of scooters and mopeds manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of Pontedera, Italy, to a ...

''). They are the only nocturnal members of the subfamily

Vespinae The subfamily Vespinae contains the largest and best-known groups of eusocial wasps, including true hornets (the genus ''Vespa''), and the "yellowjackets" (genera ''Dolichovespula'' and ''Vespula''). The remaining genus, '' Provespa'', is a smal ...

, and also the only vespines where new colonies are formed by swarming (one queen attended by a large number of workers, similar to

honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the ...

s).Matsuura, M. (1999) Size and composition of swarming colonies in ''Provespa anomala'' (Hymenoptera, Vespidae), a nocturnal social wasp.

Insectes Sociaux ''Insectes sociaux'' is a scientific journal dedicated to the study of social insects. It is the official journal of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI), and is published by Birkhäuser Verlag Birkhäuser was a Swit ...

Volume 46,pp 219-223. They tend to build their nests from fibrous plant material, making them a uniform greyish brown colour which is often difficult to locate.

Species

* ''Provespa anomala'' ( Saussure, 1854) * ''Provespa barthelemyi'' (Buysson, 1905) * ''Provespa nocturna'' Vecht, 1935

References

External links

Hornets of Malaysia
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080930200541/http://users.skynet.be/fa968040/VESPIDAE/Genus_Provespa.htm *https://web.archive.org/web/20070331123043/http://www.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/~jkrte/wasp/vespinae/Provespa.html Vespidae Fauna of Southeast Asia Taxa named by William Harris Ashmead {{Vespidae-stub