Palaeovespa

The genus was first described by Dr. Theodore Cockerell in a 1906 paper published in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. The genus name is a combination of the Greek '', meaning "old" and vespa from the genus Vespa, the type genus of the family Vespidae where Palaeovespa'' is placed. Along with the genus description, the paper contained the description of the type species P. florissantia, P. scudderi and P. gillettei all from the Florissant Formation. Cockerell described a fourth species, P. baltica in 1909 from a specimen in Baltic amber. Five years later, in 1914, Cockerell described another species P. wilsoni from Florissant. In 1923, P. relecta was named by Cockerell, bring the species count to six, with five described from Florissant. Palaeovespa gained another species, P. socialis, in 2005 when George Poinar Jr. described a second species found in Baltic amber, while the eighth, and geologically oldest species, P. menatensis, was published by Nel et al (2006). ==Description==

Palaeovespa is most similar to the extant genus Vespa, with which it shares many similar features such as a broad rounded thorax with a sessile abdomen that is broad at the base. The species was named in 1909 by Cockerell in a paper describing a number of fossil Hymenoptera housed in the University of Königsberg amber collections. This species was described from a single female specimen recovered from shales on the Wilson Ranch near Florissant, Colorado. The size and overall characters are similar to P. gillettei with an overall length of about and a forewing length of , the head and thorax are black while the abdomen and legs are pale, possibly having been yellow in life. The type and only known specimen is part of the Colorado Museum of Natural History collections and was loaned to Cockerell by the museum's director at that time, Jesse D. Figgins. ==References==