• protist@mander.xyz
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    1 day ago

    There are thousands of wasp species and the overwhelming majority don’t even have the ability to sting humans. You probably don’t ever even notice them, despite being the most important group of pollinators in the world, because you might mistake them for bees or flies. Also, bees are wasps (and so are ants). For more wasp facts, please like and subscribe.

    • RavingGrob@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      18 hours ago

      While Ants, Bees, Wasps and Hornets are all in the family Hymenoptera, it is incredibly wrong to suggest that Bees and Ants are Wasps.

      They are distinct species that are related to each other.

      Sincerely — a pest control technician who is incredibly tired of helping solve “bee” problems, when 99% of the time, they have a Wasp problem.

      • ulterno@programming.dev
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        2 hours ago

        Yeah, because otherwise by the above logic, one could also say, “bees are humans (and so are eels)”, because they all belong to the Animalia kingdom.

        Oh even better, “bees are Uranus (and so are sedimentary rocks)”, because all are nouns.

      • brachypelmide@lemmy.zip
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        4 hours ago

        Yup! Was about to type out a similar reply. To further clarify:

        Hymenoptera - order of Insecta - ants, bees, wasps, hornets
        Aculeata - infraorder of Hymenoptera - bees, wasps, hornets
        Apidae - family of Aculeata - bees (also bumblebees)
        Vespidae - family of Aculeata - wasps, hornets Formicidae - family of Hymenoptera - ants

        edit20260227: forgot ants belong to aculeata

        • HeavenlySpoon@ttrpg.network
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          16 hours ago

          Except many non-Vespidae, both living and extinct, would readily be considered wasps. Look at this thing and tell me it’s not a wasp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eusapvertic.jpg If that’s a wasp and a yellow-jacket is a wasp, then so are ants and bees, in the same way that we are apes and birds are dinosaurs. You wouldn’t call a zoo to deal with a loose human and you wouldn’t call dr. Grant to deal with a pigeon, but biologically it makes a lot more sense to deal with ancestry then with how a species interacts with humans.

          • brachypelmide@lemmy.zip
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            7 hours ago

            If that’s a wasp and a yellow-jacket is a wasp, then so are ants and bees,

            That logic doesn’t check out, given Sapygidae is a family of sapygid wasps belonging to the Aculeata infraorder.

            Aculeata is named after its defining feature, which is the modification of the ovipositor into a stinger. This trait doesn’t strictly constitute a wasp, which is why they have their own families (Vespidae, Sapygidae, Pompilidae, Myrmosidae, basically all of the Chrysidoidea superfamily, etc.).

            All wasps are aculeate, but not all aculeates are wasps.

          • LwL@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            You can’t argue “this looks like a wasp so it is a wasp” and then extend from that to “and because of evolutionary history, all these other things that don’t look like wasps are also wasps”

            Defining groups of species with a common word is always going to be ambiguous, but you need to stay consistent in what you use to define it. By the same logic you can argue that humans are fish, because whales clearly are fish if you just look at them, and whales and humans are both mammals.

        • RavingGrob@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          16 hours ago

          Most of the time: it’s more about the fact that bees are typically harmless, and calling a bee a wasp, to me, is like calling Starry, Pepsi, because they’re both made by PepsiCo.

          And yes, honeybees are a protected species here, meaning we’d need an apiarist to either remove the hive and capture the swarm, or officially tell us that the hive is too large to safely remove, without destroying the home.

    • almost1337@lemmy.zip
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      23 hours ago

      When you squash a wasp it releases a chemical from the wasp that attracts people who tell you facts about wasps.

    • avg@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      Whenever you see posts like this assume that the op is referencing yellow jacket waps, after I started gardening ive learned more about wasps and their part to play in my garden, yellow jacks can suck a dick though. They can go from 0 to 100 real quick and little provocation, I will choose to protect my kids over them.

      • Fmstrat@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Except comment op is wrong. Probably ChatGPT nonsense. Bees, wasps and ants are of the same family, but bees are not wasps.

      • optional@sh.itjust.works
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        21 hours ago

        yellow jacks can suck a dick though

        I already liked wasps before, you don’t have to sell to me. Different topic though: How do you make them do that?

      • Maiq@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        Paper wasps are complete dicks too but I hold a specific grudge for bald faced hornets!

        • avg@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          I honestly feel like I’d have a hard time telling them apart, I already have a hard time telling european bees from yellow jackets.

          • Maiq@piefed.social
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            1 day ago

            Paper wasps are the ones with the long dangly legs. Bald faced hornets are larger and black and white.

      • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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        21 hours ago

        California’s Oxnard High School team/mascot is the Yellow Jackets. Admittedly they are badass motherfuckers, but it’s a little weird in cheering because most traditional cheers assume two syllables and you wind up yelling “Go Jackets!” like some kind of radical haberdashery

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      23 hours ago

      The motherfuckers that set up shop inside my car definitely had the ability to sting humans.

      About the only time I can drop an unironic “source: my ass.”

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      In my experience, even the stingy ones aren’t that aggressive. They get pissed if you attack them or their hive and can panick if they get stuck in hair or clothes. I usually just (slowly and gently) “push” them away with my hand if they get too close, like at 10cm/s. They usually give up and move on if they were trying to check me out, or continue on if they were passing by too close. If they are trying to get at my food or drink, they might be a bit more persistant about it, but I haven’t had one get aggressive because of it.

      That said, I had an ex that bugs just seemed to hate/love. Apparently house flies can bite (though I still have a feeling that she was bit by a different fly that looks like a house fly, but can’t say for sure because I did see her getting harassed by bugs that just ignored me). So ymmv.