Sand Digger (Hunting) Wasp

One day I was out walking on my lunch hour, and as usual, I had my camera with me. Casing out the ground as I walked, I noticed something crawling around in the dirt, climbing in and out of small holes. At first, because of the coloring, I thought I had found a spider wasp. This thread-waisted wasp, however, turned out to be what is sometimes called a “Sand Lover” wasp. Instead of hunting spiders to feed to her young, she hunts and paralyzes caterpillars.

Digger Wasp (Sand Wasp / Sand Lover) – Ammophila sabulosa Read more

Tagged: Wasp FAQs and Concerns

Mud Dauber Architects

Mud daubers, “mud what?”  Mud “d-a-u-b-e-r-s.”  According to Webster, to daub is “to cover or coat with a soft adhesive matter such as plaster or mud.”  Mud dauber female wasp are like miniature architects creating nests out of mud, much like brick-laying, only they  build by scooping mud into their mouths and daubing it in layers until their nests are big enough for larvae to grow.  Ergo – mud daubers.

Mud dauber wasps hunt spiders to feed to their young.

Black-and-Yellow Mud dauber – Sceliphron caementarium

Beneficial Wasp and Huntress

A solitary wasp and beneficial insect, the predatory black-and-yellow mud dauber feeds spiders to her young, helping to decrease the spider population within an area while providing necessary food for her babies.   If a wasp could be friendly, it would be this one……mud daubers are unlikely to sting (and they don´t contain venom), unless they are feeling very threatened.  Adult mud daubers, both male and female, live mostly on nectar and sap but the larvae can only survive on fresh meat from spiders left by their mother. Read more

Tagged: Wasp FAQs and Concerns