The genus Polistes Latreille, 1802 (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) of Brazil: morphological diagnoses, identification key, and geographical distribution Author Brito, Samanta 0000-0002-0945-6894 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Manaus, AM, Brazil brito.samanta25@gmail.com Author Oliveira, Marcio L. 0000-0002-3950-1086 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Manaus, AM, Brazil mlolivei@inpa.gov.br Author Carpenter, James M. 0000-0001-6754-8028 American Museum of Natural History, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, New York, USA carpente@amnh.org Author Somavilla, Alexandre Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Manaus, AM, Brazil text Zootaxa 2024 2024-08-21 5496 4 509 545 http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5496.4.3 journal article 10.11646/zootaxa.5496.4.3 1175-5326 13617543 CC25A6CB-0783-4917-BEF7-0F332F6451F5 The subgenus Palisotius Richards, 1973 Palisotius Richards, 1973: 95 , 96, 100, ♀ , ♂ . Type species . Polistes major Palisot de Beauvois, 1818 , by original designation. Diagnosis (based on Richards 1973 , Somavilla et al . 2021b ). Body large, about 25 mm long. Color usually dark yellow with brown marks or completely brown. Tergum I slightly wider than long, abruptly widened in lateral view. Malar space as long as wide or weakly transverse. Clypeus in female touching eye for an extent smaller than diameter of antennal socket; in males, clypeus touching the ventral edge of the eye. Pronotal fovea present. Epicnemial carina, when present, incomplete. Mesepisternal dorsal groove conspicuous, complete. Posterior sternum laterally without tubercle in male. Male genitalia with aedeagus thin, teeth on apical portion intermediate; penis valve dilated, nonbilobed or weakly bilobed; digitus with developed apical process and rounded anteroventral lobe. Species included . Three species, two of them are in Brazil . Distribution . Neotropics and Nearctic.