Radio Tagging Technology and the Vespidae Family

Pollinator Overview:

• Pollination occurs when pollen is moved within flowers or carried from flower to flower by pollinating animals such as birds, bees, bats, butterflies, moths, and beetles. Sometimes pollination can occur via the wind, humans, or other organisms.

  • Somewhere between 75% and 95% of all flowering plants on the earth need help with pollination. Pollinators provide services to over 180,000 different plant species and more than 1200 crops.

• Family Vespidae overview:

  • There are over 1,000 species within the family Vespidae including wasps, yellowjackets, and hornets. In fact, all wasps are hornets, but not all hornets are wasps- hornets are the largest possible wasps.

  • How to identify different members of the Vespidae Family:

    • Wasps- slender, smooth body and legs with relatively few hairs. Wasps also generally are predatory or parasitic and have stingers with few barbs that can be removed easily from their victims.

    • Hornet- looks like a large yellowjacket—about ¾ to 1½ inches long—and nests in the ground or in hollow trees.

    • Yellow Jacket- black and yellow bands on their abdomen

• Benefits of the Vespidae Family

  • The 3 P's: Pollination, Predation, and Parasitism. Without wasps, we would be overrun with insect pests, and we wouldn't have certain foods like figs!