The Mystery of the Maribundi Wasp

In 1914, after his political career ended, Theodore Roosevelt embarked on an expedition to the Amazon region. He recounted his adventures in a memoir entitled [*Through the Brazilian Wilderness*](http://www.bartleby.com/174/). Among other things, he recounts tales of a very large and fearsome wasp termed the *maribundi*, with an extremely powerful sting:

>...we were menaced by the big red wasps, of which a dozen stings will disable a man, and if he is weak or in bad health will seriously menace his life. \(p.118\) > >One of the men was stung by a single big red *maribundi* wasp. For twenty\-four hours he was in great pain and incapacitated for work. \(p. 137\)

However, modern references to the insects of Amazonia seem to contain no references to any hymenopteran of that name, nor to any wasp answering to the general description. The etymology of the name may have something in common with *marabunta*, but that word generally refers to army ants \(*Eciton burchelli*\), which Roosevelt also encountered but described separately.

Not many known wasps have a sting as fearsome as what Roosevelt described; the closest might be the mandarin hornet of Asia \(*Vespa mandarinia*\), but those are not red nor have they ever been found in South America. Did Roosevelt describe a species that went extinct before being catalogued by entomologists? If not, what was the maribundi?