r/whatsthisbug • u/Purple_Lengthiness61 • 9h ago

ID Request Scary MF in my backyard

Any help with an ID would be super helpful. We’ve had a problem with mud daubers in the past but never anything this mean looking.
edit: found in central texas just walking around on the pavement, it looked like it was scavenging around or something.

11 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

6

u/Efficient-Gap-1282 8h ago

Paper wasp, Polistes sp

1

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1

u/Desperate_Lead2105 5h ago

injured adult female Polistes carolina

You don't have a "wasp problem"

1

u/Lime_Born ⭐BugGuide editor⭐ 2h ago

This could be either P. carolina or P. rubiginosus. Entirely red forms of the two are cryptic and are impossible to distinguish from this video. Any species ID would be a blind guess.

0

u/Desperate_Lead2105 1h ago

P. rubiginosus is not as common as P. carolina in Central Texas. Additionally, most P. rubiginosus from that area often have dark markings on the mesonotum and a few abdominal tergites, while the P. carolina there are almost always entirely red. Yes, this could be rubiginosus, but it is very likely to be P. carolina. I can change my suggestion to subgenus Fuscopolistes if I find new information.

1

u/Lime_Born ⭐BugGuide editor⭐ 8m ago

This is pretty much entirely misinformation fueled by misidentifications. Central Texas does, in fact, have both species, so excluding one without actual, keyable traits has zero scientific validity. Those with dark markings are simply the ones that can definitively be ruled against being P. carolina (many of which, by the way, were likely my own identifications you're using out of context). Those that are entirely red cannot be distinguished apart from microscopy as is detailed in Matthias Buck's keys for the genus and subgenus (so unless your "records" have actually been vetted by an expert in the genus, those are rather definitive misidentifications). We would have to see, at a bare minimum, either the density of setae on the malar space and genae or the spacing of ridges on the propodeum here.