[1] It can be easily identified with its characteristic yellow, brown, and reddish markings, and it builds nests made from chewing plant fibers and making them into paper.

[1][7] Male Polistes are typically smaller than females, have a yellow face, and hold their antenna curled at the tips, while females hold their antenna straight at the tips and have more dark markings on their faces.

[2] Nests are constructed with paper substance made by chewing up plant fibers, and they are typically connected a surface by a stalk.

[4] These include Central and South America, specifically Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

[1] Those found in Costa Rica tend to live in the lowlands, in dry forested areas.

Once the rainy season ends in December, individuals migrate to higher elevation to wait out the winter.

When the young develop, females become workers and continue to build the nest and tend to larvae.

Wasps usually leave the nest in October or November to overwinter, and new colonies are formed again the following March.

[3] Although female workers and reproductives are virtually identical in appearance and morphology,[13] the queen can easily be identified by observing her actions.

[3] When a queen is removed from the nest, an old and active worker with high dominance takes her place.

They accomplish this by performing dominance interactions to other workers such as gaster wagging, wing vibrating, and aggressive actions.

[15] Those who are foragers must respond to intrinsic and extrinsic changes in colony need in order to maintain levels of food, water and building materials.

[16] Individuals will do gaster wagging, wing vibrations, or other aggressions in order to assert their dominance and tell subordinates to forage.

Polistes instabilis spends roughly half of the daylight hours inactive and immobile.

Periods of inactivity are broken when individuals initiate actions such as arriving, leaving, walking, antennating, gaster wagging, or fanning.

[6] Foragers will take nectar from many different plants such as soapberry, sumacs, vauquelinia, and Apache plume.

[13] Polistes instabilis seem to have a mutualistic relationship with Croton suberosus, a neotropical shrub.