| Little information regarding the flagellar sensilla of the Vespidae, particularly Polistes, exists in the literature. A variety of social behaviors in vespids, such as alarm pheromones and pheromone response, involve intraspecific communication. Therefore, an understanding of sensory receptors in social wasps would benefit further behavioral and neurological studies of wasps. The flagellar sensilla of female paper wasps Polistes dorsalis, Polistes metricus, and the solitary wasp Monobia quadridens were examined by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. A number of olfactory receptors, contact chemoreceptors, and mechanoreceptors were named and described. Possible functions of these receptors were proposed based on morphological and ultrastructural data for each type of sensillum. Counts of several sensilla were made over the whole of five flagellae of each species and results were compared among species, flagellomeres, medial and lateral surfaces. |
