How do social wasps manufacture the surprisingly durable material used for their paper nests?
Answer
Workers chew wood fibers or plant material, mixing the resulting pulverized cellulose with their saliva to form a pulp that dries into paper.
Social wasps are renowned nest builders, creating structures that mimic paper, but this material is manufactured internally rather than collected ready-made. The process involves workers actively scraping and chewing fibrous materials, such as wood or plant matter, reducing it to fine particles. These pulverized cellulose fibers are then combined meticulously with the wasp's saliva. This mixture creates a pulp that, once spread and allowed to dry, hardens into a strong, durable, paper-like material used to construct the walls and cells of their nests.
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