Polybia occidentalis, commonly known as camoati, is a swarm-founding advanced eusocial wasp.

[8] Queen wasps are differentiated from workers because they have visibly larger ovaries, which are filled with eggs.

[10] P. occidentalis lives in neotropic areas that consist of tropical forests with strong wet-dry seasonality.

[11] They are built in neotropic areas in shrubs and trees in pastures, hedgerows, forest edges, and on and around buildings.

[2] Due to the swarm-founding nature of P. occidentalis, a multitude of workers initiate a colony.

When the wet season starts in May, the colony is established and the wasps are able to find prey much easier due to the weather from May through November.

The numerous workers give rise to the division of labor and an increased defense system .

These smaller wasps seem to have more social interaction, which influences a division of labor and of age polytheism.

Wood-pulp foragers gather wood pulp from nearby fiber sources.

They use the water to moisten the pulp, and then they work this new mixture into the nest to create a stronger wall for the combs and the envelopes.

Also, in higher-populated colonies, the cost is minimized in time delay because so many wasps are doing the jobs and rotating in foraging and supplying the builders.

This saves energy and time because each forager is making fewer trips to gather resources.

Because the foragers take fewer trips outside of the nest, the risk of predation in larger colonies is reduced.

This causes more expended energy and more time delays due to the workers’ constant need to make trips outside of the nest to gather resources.

[4] As opposed to movement and verbal communication, they secrete specific odors depending on their food source.

In various studies, information concerning where to forage was communicated through odors to newcomers from those that knew where the prey was due to experience.

While this is not recruitment, because it is not intentional communication, newcomers are able to figure out where to find food sources due to information extracted from experienced foragers.

[11] If the nest is rattled or threatened, alarm recruitment occurs through venom and venom-bearing structures in body.

[11] Overall, P. occidentalis has a very high relatedness,[9] primarily due to the number of queens in the colony over time.

[12] To start the cycle, the workers and the queens build the nest and reproduce, respectively, at the beginning of the dry season.

[12] P. occidentalis feeds on insect prey (such as caterpillars), carbohydrate sources, and nectar found in nearby locations.

They most likely attack if the intruder has a specific visual stimulus, such as a dark color, as opposed to whether or not it is moving, as in Vespula.

[11] Similarly, Polistes instabilis is a species that also defends the nest using these two steps, but does not use an alarm pheromone or odors.

[15] P. occidentalis wasps are parasitized by gregarines,[16] a protozoan that can either be harmless or burdensome without being lethal.

When gregarines parasitize this species, it lowers foraging rates, along with changing other aspects of life.

[16] When tested in mice, denatured venom from P. occidentalis inhibited convulsions during seizures induced by bicuculline, picrotoxin, and kainic acid.

These findings imply that the denatured venom could possibly help epilepsy in humans without having negative side effects to the neurological system.

The venom of P. occidentalis worked well because it is from a neotropic wasps and it has a low molecular weight, implying the presence of free amino acids.

These free amino acids would need to be further studied to determine their exact effect and mechanism.

In the mice, as the venom increased inactivity, it simultaneously decreased grooming and exploratory and elevation behaviors.