Australian hornet Australian hornet The Australian hornet ("Abispa ephippium"), actually a type of potter wasp or "mason wasp", is a vespid insect native to the Australian states and territories of the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. The Australian hornet is a solitary insect, forming small nests against buildings and other structures. The adult wasp feeds off flower nectar, while the larvae are fed caterpillars captured by the female. "A. ephippium" is in length. The insect is mostly orange, with a large central black patch on the top of the thorax, and a wide black
Bald-faced hornet the queen's brood. In a sampling of seven "D. maculata nests", 20.9% of males were produced by workers. The percentage of males who were workers’ sons did not correlate with the time during which nests were collected or colony size. Because worker relatedness is so high in "D. maculata", workers are more related to other workers' sons than to the queen's own sons, and therefore worker policing of egg production does not occur. An explanation for the queen's near monopoly on male production is that worker production is costly and therefore reduces total colony reproduction. The cost toward worker production