Interestingly, this might suggest some male wasps' seventh abdominal segment is conserved. Modern female wasps having other than six abdominal segments I belie

Interestingly, this might suggest some male wasps' seventh abdominal segment is conserved. Modern female wasps having other than six abdominal segments I believe to be unknown, and is certainly unknown to me; while fertilized or "foundress" females do share with males the need for extra body space to support functioning and thus unusually large reproductive organs, females specialized for the reproductive role display morphological differences beginning from larvahood to accommodate the task. (In eusocial species, reproductive females or 'gynes' differ from workers or 'ergates' in having the ability to be inseminated; in subsocial species, gynes are raised and fed for the role from birth and as a result simply grow up extra big and strong, with noticeably larger abdomens in body proportion than their sisters whose labor is less deferred.) edit: Fixed a bug resulting from a Wikipedia editor doing a lousy job with taxonomy. It is actually possible that some lineal relationship exists between structures described here and those of modern male wasps with a seventh gastral segment.