Howard Ensign Evans was a brilliant ethologist and systematist for whom the joy of science included lying on his belly in some remote location, digging out and diagramming a wasp's nest. During his career, Evans described over 900 species and authored more than a dozen books, both technical and popular, on a wide range of entomological and natural history subjects. Upon his death in 2002, he left behind an unfinished manuscript, intended as an update (though not a revision) of his classic 1966 work, The Comparative Ethology and Evolution of the Sand Wasps. Kevin O'Neill, Evans's...
Howard Ensign Evans was a brilliant ethologist and systematist for whom the joy of science included lying on his belly in some remote location, dig...
While social wasps, like hornets and yellow jackets, garner most of the publicity (most of it negative), the vast majority of wasp species, including digger wasps, spider wasps, and mud-daubers, are solitary. Elegant in appearance and distinctive in their actions, solitary wasps have long fascinated observers and have been the subject of narratives by such naturalists and scientists as Jean Henri Fabre, Niko Tinbergen, and Howard Ensign Evans. Each adult female solitary wasp forages alone and, if she builds a nest, it is occupied solely by herself and her own offspring. Females use their...
While social wasps, like hornets and yellow jackets, garner most of the publicity (most of it negative), the vast majority of wasp species, including ...