- Animals
- ›Arthropods
- ›Hexapods
- ›Insects
- ›Winged and Once-winged Insects
- ›Ants, Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies
- ›Narrow-waisted Wasps, Ants, and Bees
- ›Ants, Bees, and Stinging Wasps
- ›Vespoid Wasps
- ›Hornets, Paper Wasps, Potter Wasps, and Allies
- ›Paper Wasps
- ›Polistini
- ›Polistes
- ›Fuscopolistes

Fine-backed Red Paper Wasp
Polistes carolina
One of two types of red paper wasps, Polistes carolina is a species of social wasp (subfamily Polistinae) in the family Vespidae. They are most commonly found in the eastern US from Texas through Nebraska. The wasp's common name is due to the reddish-brown color of its head and body. Red paper wasps are known to construct some of the largest nests of any wasp species and prefer to build their nests in protected spaces.
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Polistes carolina in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 121792.