Wasps in the context of "Crematogaster"

Nocturnality is a behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is nocturnal, with diurnal meaning the opposite.

Nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed senses of hearing, smell, and specially adapted eyesight. Some animals, such as ferrets, have eyes that can adapt to both low-level and bright day levels of illumination (see metaturnal). Others, such as bushbabies and (some) bats, can function only at night. Many nocturnal creatures including tarsiers and some owls have large eyes in comparison with their body size to compensate for the lower light levels at night. More specifically, they have been found to have a larger cornea relative to their eye size than diurnal creatures to increase their visual sensitivity: in the low-light conditions. Nocturnality helps wasps, such as Apoica flavissima, avoid hunting in intense sunlight.

Pollen wasps, the Masarinae, are unusual wasps that are typically treated as a subfamily of Vespidae, but have in the past sometimes been recognized as a separate family, "Masaridae", which also included the subfamilies Euparagiinae and Gayellinae. It is a small subfamily, unique among wasps in feeding their larvae exclusively with pollen and nectar, in a fashion quite similar to many solitary bees. Most species are black or brown, marked with strikingly contrasting patterns of yellow, white, or red (or combinations thereof). They are most diverse and abundant in the desert regions of southern Africa, but also occur in the deserts of North and South America. Some species of Pseudomasaris in California, such as Pseudomasaris vespoides, bear a remarkable resemblance to yellow jackets, but can be recognized by their strongly clubbed antennae, a characteristic feature of the subfamily. Males have greatly elongated antennae, but still ending in a strong club.

They carry pollen in their crops, and regurgitate it along with nectar when provisioning the cells of their nests, and they lay their eggs in the soupy mass before sealing the cell. The nests are often constructed of mud, or burrows in the ground, and these can have one to multiple individual cells. The nests are commonly located in concealed places, such as under rocks or in crevices.

Insect cognition describes the mental capacities and study of those capacities in insects. The field developed from comparative psychology where early studies focused more on animal behavior. Researchers have examined insect cognition in bees, fruit flies, and wasps.  

Research questions consist of experiments aimed to evaluate insects' abilities such as perception, emotions attention, memory (wasp multiple nest), spatial cognition, tools use, problem solving, and concepts. Unlike in animal behavior the concept of group cognition plays a big part in insect studies. It is hypothesized some insect classes like ants and bees think with a group cognition to function within their societies; more recent studies show that individual cognition exists and plays a role in overall group cognitive task.

Insect olfaction refers to the function of chemical receptors that enable insects to detect and identify volatile compounds for foraging, predator avoidance, finding mating partners (via pheromones) and locating oviposition habitats. Thus, it is the most important sensation for insects. Most important insect behaviors must be timed perfectly which is dependent on what they smell and when they smell it. For example, olfaction is essential for locating host plants and hunting prey in many species of insects, such as the moth Deilephila elpenor and the wasp Polybia sericea, respectively.

The two organs insects primarily use for detecting odors are the antennae and specialized mouth parts called the maxillary palps. However, a recent study has demonstrated the olfactory role of ovipositor in fig wasps. Inside of these olfactory organs there are neurons called olfactory receptor neurons which, as the name implies, house receptors for scent molecules in their cell membrane. The majority of olfactory receptor neurons typically reside in the antenna. These neurons can be very abundant; for example, Drosophila flies have 2,600 olfactory sensory neurons.