🐾 What Animal Lives Where

Where does the Paper wasp live?

Polistes olivaceus has 2,136 records in 38 countries and territories, from 1906 to 2026. Most records come from India.

Paper wasp
Paper wasp — Photo: Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
AnimaliaArthropodaInsectaHymenopteraEumenidaePolistes

When it is recorded

JFMAMJJASOND

Peak month: March. Records cluster in the months an animal is present and being looked for, so a summer peak can reflect observer effort as much as the animal.

Records over time

19062026

Recording effort has risen steeply almost everywhere since the 1990s, so a rising line usually shows more observers rather than more animals.

Where it is recorded

PlaceRecordsShare
India 297
Madagascar 250
Hong Kong 216
French Polynesia 190
Réunion 134
Bangladesh 119
Mauritius 104
United States 99
Cook Islands 97
Fiji 87
Seychelles 81
Guam 76
Vietnam 75
New Caledonia 44
China 42
Vanuatu 42
Maldives 40
Cocos Islands 21
Nepal 17
Samoa 17
Tonga 16
New Zealand 10
American Samoa 9
British Indian Ocean Territory 9
Niue 8
Wallis & Futuna 8
Pakistan 5
Thailand 5
Bhutan 3
Chile 3
Northern Mariana Islands 3
Afghanistan 2
Myanmar 2
Australia 1
DR Congo 1
Japan 1
Solomon Islands 1
South Africa 1

Related animals

Others in the family Eumenidae.

Caribbean Paper Wasp
Caribbean Paper Wasp
1,542 records
Status from the records: resident
Recorded across many years and months — an established presence. This is inferred from how many years and months the animal appears in, not from a range map — treat it as evidence, not a formal assessment.