• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.345-350
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• 2010

In the Vinous-throated Parrotbill Paradoxornis webbianus, potential intraspecific nest parasitism was observed in four nests (0.38%, n=1,062) during twelve breeding seasons between 1988 and 2007. At first, a nest involved 9 white eggs was found in Puyong-ri, Yangpyong-gun, Kyonggi Province in 1995. This nest would be parasitized by the same species, given that this is out of range of normal clutch size (5 eggs) in Vinous-throated Parrotbills. The second and third cases were recorded in 2001 and 2005 in Sa-dong, Ansan City, Kyonggi Province, respectively. In these nests, two eggs were added to the clutch in a single day. The final observation was made in Puyong-ri in 2007, in which one white egg was laid in the nest at the pre-laying stage. The color of the egg was different from that of the original clutch (blue). The above four things suggest that intraspecific nest parasitism can occur in Vinous-throated Parrotbills although it is an uncommon phenomenon in their life history.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.537-540
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• 2015

Social parasitism is occasionally found in some Polistes and Vespa species, such as Vespa dybowskii. We report a discovey of interspecific facultative social parasitism by Polistes sp. (possibly P. mandarinus) on Polistes djakonovi Kostylev in two rural areas of South Korea. P. djakonovi is very similar to Polistes sp. in its body color patterns except that the mark on the clypeus is different. In nest 1 (65 cells), we found 5 females of P. djakonovi and 4 females of Polistes sp. on 30 July 2014, whereas nest 2 (102 cells) contained 12 females and 16 males of P. djakonovi, and 3 females of Polistes sp. on 28 August 2013. Although we found the two nests in July and August, P. djakonovi seems to have been exploited by Polistes sp. at the end of the preemergence period (early to mid-June). The two nests found in this study had mainly white cocoon caps of P. djakonovi with several yellow ones of Polistes sp. In most cases of social parasitism, intruders have a larger size of the body or some body parts than the host in order to usurp the host; in contrast, this study showed that the hosts had lager bodies than the intruders.