| Polistes gallicus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Vespidae |
| Subfamily: | Polistinae |
| Genus: | Polistes |
| Species: | P. gallicus |
| Binomial name | |
| Polistes gallicus Linnaeus, 1761 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Polistes gallicus (also historically referred to as Polistes foederatus) is a fairly common species of European paper wasp, almost indistinguishable from the European paper wasp, Polistes dominula, with which it had long been confused. Nearly every reference to "P. gallicus" prior to 1985 was actually referring to P. dominula; due to the great similarity between species, however, many published studies for which there are no vouchered reference specimens cannot be reliably assigned to either species. Most of the literature that pertains to actual P. gallicus uses the junior synonym, P. foederatus, a name which still occasionally appears in the literature despite the known error (e.g., in O'Donnel[1]).