[2] It has been found in Ontario, Canada and the eastern United States from Illinois down south to Florida and west to Nebraska and California.

This suggests that their range has either expanded northward and contracted southward or that they have large, long-term cycles of abundance.

[4] P. exclamans has three specific castes, including males, workers, and queens, but the dominance hierarchy is further distinguished by age.

Since P. exclamans live in relatively small, open combed nests, they are often subject to predators and parasites, such as Chalcoela iphitalis, Elasmus polistis, and birds.

The typical form is found in the south-eastern United States and inhabits the following states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Colorado, and Arizona.

The middle of the flagellum, the base of the abdominal segments, and the outer side of the mid and hind tibiae are infuscate or black colored, as are the wings.

[8] Although no distinguishing structural features have been found to separate the workers and queens, the male is easily identified by its bulging eyes, subquadrate clypeus, and slender antennae.

[8] As a vespid wasp, P. exclamans nests are typically made up of paper with a single layer of cells with open combs.

[14] P. exclamans have also been observed occupying artificial nests put out by researchers and consisting of bundles of straws.

[18] While there aren't many external morphological differences between queens and workers, there are some internal traits that can be signals of a wasp's social status.

In addition to her reproductive role, the queen must also act as the pacemaker of the nest and synchronize the worker activity.

[16] In a study done by Strassmann, it was found that sexual investment is female biased, especially during years of high predation and when nests are generally less successful.

[19] The reproductive early males produced may be adaptive for the deaths of the queens so that the colony will not die and will be able to continue.

It was found that the opposite sex was attracted upwind of the scent and the results were intensified when a fan was turned on.

Thus, it is common for the nest to be destroyed, for the queen to die prior to the end of the season, or for the nest to fail through other means, such as predation, parasitisation, or worker mortality, leading workers to help rear broods that are less related to them than are their sister wasps.

Solis and Strassmann conducted a study in which an experimental group had the eggs and larvae removed.

This is indicative that the presence of the brood affects caste differentiation and that P. exclamans female workers exhibit adaptive reproductive plasticity.

[24] Recently, however, it has been indicated that many insects have the ability to discriminate relatives even having lived in identical environments with their non-relative counterpart.

[24] In P. exclamans, it has been indicated that discrimination of relatives from non-relatives, even having lived in identical environments, is possible.

This was found by Allen, Schulze Kellman, and Gamboa through an experiment in which hibernating wasps from different nests were put in a box together after being raised in identical environments.

This indicates that the wasps were capable of differentiating relative from nonrelative, an adaptive ability in the defense of their nest.

[25] “These aggregations are frequently found in protected places called hibernacula that can be as varied as crevices and cracks of rocks or trunks, beneath the bark of trees, between walls of buildings, or any other natural or artificial structures that provides protection during hibernation.”[25] Although P. exclamans have been found in organ-pipe muddauber nests, a mud nest that can provide a certain level of protection, it is not thought to actually house hibernating P. exclamans over the winter.

[15] Similar to the wasp species Parischnogaster alternata, which constructs a multitude of nests in clusters in order to create protection through a dilution effect, the satellites are used as an insurance against attacks by predators and parasitoids.

[15] When Chalcoela iphitalis invades, the prevalence of satellites didn't increase the survivability, though it did have an effect when Elasmus polistis were introduced.

If the wasps detect an intruder they will violently bite and sting the location where the C. iphitalis moth has passed by.

Once the females emerge, the males will mate and reproduce, quickly destroying the P. exclamans population.

Alexander predicted that the cost to large groups is that they are more likely to suffer from parasitism, but at the same time, they benefit by defense against predation.

[32] P. exclamans uses facial patterns as a conventional characteristic to determine the agonistic abilities of competitive rivals.

[32] This assists in the minimization of the “costs of conflict during dominance competition among nest-founding queens.”[32] Polistes exclamans exhibit an alarm response, typical of many higher level eusocial Hymenoptera.

Although certain other insects have been able to adapt the release of the pheromone to other means of communicating alarm, P. exclamans has yet to do so, indicating that it is still in its “primitive state in evolution of the complex systems of communication of alarm seen in higher social insects.”[33] In one experiment, pheromones were extracted from female glands and sacs and were spread onto venom paper.