30. The Paper Wasp

Most people treat wasps with respect. This respect has nothing to do with reverence for life, and everything to do with that handy stiletto hidden in the wasp's back end! We have several species of wasps in Malta, one of which is the common paper wasp (M: zunzan tax-xehda), that familiar black-and-yellow stripey fellow we see in our gardens. People find it hard to realise that wasps are NOT out there in search of human victims to sting - they have better things to do, like looking for food! Paper wasps have just as sweet a tooth as we do, which is why they're often at the beach patrolling litter bins for ice-cream wrappers and soft drink cups to lick off the precious sugary leftovers. They are called paper wasps because they build their nest out of paper - paper that they manufacture themselves from chewed scraps of wood. Yes, the humble wasp discovered the art of making paper millions of years before Homo sapiens walked the earth!

Text by Victor Falzon, photo by Desirée Falzon.
  Copyright to Birdlife Malta.