author(s)
Khalid Khan, Muhammad Rasool and Muhammad Zahid

abstract
The objective of the present study was to find out the fauna of the social wasps of the subfamily Polistinae of Dir Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa Pakistan. Dir is situated in the North of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa at an elevation of 1420 meters with an altitude of 35.1977° N and latitude 71.8749° E. A total of 248 specimens were collected from the study area from April, 2015 to November, 2017. The specimens represented eight species under two genera, Polistes and Ropalidia. The genus Polistes was represented in the area by six species Polistes indicus, P. olivaceous, P. stigma, P. wattii, P. rothneyi and Polistes flavus while the genus Ropalida was represented by two species R. brevata and R. cyathiformis. Among these P. olivaceous, P. wattii, P. flavus and R. brevata were new record for Dir. It was also observed that Polistes wattii was the most abundant species in the area while P. olivaceous and P. rothneyi were widely distributed in the area. All these wasps were found predators on various fruit crops pests and play a pollinating role in the area.