Polistes comanchus explained

Polistes comanchus is a species of paper wasp from northwestern Mexico to the south central United States.

Taxonomy

It was described in 1857 by Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure using a collection from Nuevo México^[1] - this does not correspond to the modern state of New Mexico, but at the time was a formerly Mexican territory which had recently been conquered and annexed by the USA, and included everything in between modern Nevada to east Texas. He had travelled to this region in 1856.

In 1978 Owain Richards classified P. comanchus in a subgenus he named Aphanilopterus after an old synonym of P. lanio by Fernand Anatole Meunier, he further placed it in a "species group 1".

Subspecies

Two subspecies are accepted:^[2]

• Polistes comanchus ssp. comanchus - Found in southwestern Texas, Coahuila, Durango,^[2] New Mexico?^[1]
• Polistes comanchus ssp. navajoe (Cresson, 1868) - Found in Arizona,^[2] California, New Mexico, western Texas, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa.^[2] This subspecies makes its nests in cavities reached via a very small opening.^[2]

Conservation

The IUCN has not evaluated this species' conservation status.

Notes and References

1. de Saussure . Henri Louis Frédéric . Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure . 1857 . Note sur les Polistes Américains (Séance du 25 Mars 1857) . Annales de la Société entomologique de France . 3 . 5 . 1 . 314 . fr . 14 January 2020.
2. Book: Krombein, Karl Vorse . Karl Vorse Krombein . Vespoidea . https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4575575 . Krombein . Karl V. . Hurd . Paul D. Jr. . Smith . David R. . Burks . B. D. . 1979 . Catalog of Hymenoptera in America North of Mexico . 2 . Washington, D.C. . Smithsonian Institution Press . 1513 . 10.5962/bhl.title.5074.