 The second common parasitoid , Elasmus polistis , also has disastrous effects on the P. exclamans nest . Up to 80 E. polistis will hatch out of a single cell . The males emerge first , and then will exit the nest and wait until the females emerge . Once the female moths emerge , the males will mate and reproduce , quickly destroying the P. exclamans population . In some cases the invading E. polistis will hide larvae in the nest so that the P. exclamans cannot find them . This is important to the survival of P. exclamans . The hosts will attempt to remove as many parasitoids as possible to prevent them from spreading to nearby nests . This defense mechanism has not been proven to be effective , as more often than not the E. polistis larvae go undetected by the hosts . In one experiment conducted , it was found that over 60 % of all nests lost brood to the parasitoids E. polistis or C. iphitalis in 1981 . It was also observed that larger satellites have a greater risk of being parasitized . This is due to the fact that the large nests are typically older . This relationship between age and parasitism can be seen with the fact that older queens ’ nests tend to be parasitized more than younger queens ’ nests . 
