Dolichovespula maculata

Butts, D. R, Camann, M. A. and Espelie, K.E. (1993). Discriminant analysis of cuticular hydrocarbons of the baldfaced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata (Hymenoptera Vespidae). Sociobiology, 21, 193-201. 

Butts, D. R, Espelie, K.E. and Hermann, H.R. (1991). Cuticular hydrocarbons of four species of social wasps in the subfamily vespinae Vespa crabro (L.), Dolichovespula maculata (L.), Vespula squamosa (Drury), and Vespula maculifrons (Buysson). Comp. Biochem. Physiol. B, 99, 87-91. 

The two isozymes from Dolichovespula maculata venom have 66.7% sequence identity with almost all of the differences found in the first 131 residues. This is comparable... 

Figure 3. Alignment of proteolytically derived peptides from Solenopsis invicta venom phospholipase (76) with Dolichovespula maculata venom phospholipase isozyme 1 (69). The double dots indicate identical residues and the single dots residues that differ by only a single base (conservative substitutions). Dashes indicate positions inserted to maximize alignment.

Venoms of both bees and vespid wasps contain the enzyme hyaluronidase with an apparent molecular weight of about 42000 (55, 64, 65, 66, 67). The enzymes from bee and wasp are immunologically cross-reactive (65, 78, 79). The N-terminal regions of the molecules are quite similar among several species (79). The complete sequences of two venom hyaluronidases have been determined from cDNA clones, that of Apis mellifera (80) and Dolichovespula maculata (81). The honeybee venom enzyme has 350 amino acid residues and the hornet enzyme 331 and the sequences are 55.3% identical with many stretches of contiguous identical residues. Searches of the sequence databases showed that the venom hyaluronidases are related to a guinea pig sperm protein, PH-20 (80, 82, 83) involved in sperm-egg adhesion. Further studies have shown that similar proteins are found in all mammalian sperm and that they have hyaluronidase activity (83). 

In the genera Dolichovespula, D. maculata and D. arenaria, the American hornets, are the most prevalent species in the USA in Europe, D. saxonica, D. media and D. sylvestris are important. Dolichovespula usually build their nests above ground, either hanging freely in tree branches, or in attics or window shutters. In contrast to Vespula, Dolichovespula has not much interest in human foods and stings therefore occur mainly near their nests. 

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