The Wonderful World of Wasps

I remember as a child learning that wasps were bad. Every nest needed to be erradicated, sprayed with heavy-duty pesticides, then removed. They MIGHT sting. Just the possibility makes them bad. Well, I may not convince all of you, but I would like to share with you a bit about what amazing creatures they really are. So today I am going to cover three species I find fascinating.

Black and Yellow Mud Dauber, Sceliphron caementarium is a beautiful and agile creature. This one I found near our pond gathering mud for its nest. The second part of its name caementarium means "builder". This is the wasp that builds the cylindrical mud structures on the side of your garage or house. The female wasp will find spiders and parasitize them. She carries them back to her mud nest and stuffs them inside. She then lays an egg on the spider and seals it in. When the young wasp larva emerges, it has a fresh meal. Not a great way to die for Mr. Spider!

I challenge any human to build such pefectly cylindrical shapes with their hands. It would be a difficult feat. But could you even imagine doing it with your mouth? These wasps fly to the soft mud, scoop up a mouthful, fly back to their nest and form perfectly shapes tubes with their mouth. Amazing! Another fact, these wasps rarely sting.

On the same day I captured the image of the mud dauber, I found this beautiful creature about 20 feet away. It was snacking on a Marsh Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata. This is a Great Golden Digger Wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus. It was in constant motion.

The females will dig burrows that are almost vertical. They will then construct cells radiating out from a central tunnel. Each tunnel is filled with crickets, camel crickets, and katydids. An egg is laid on the prey in each tunnel. When the larva hatches out, it will have a ready-made orthopteran meal. Talk about room service!

This beautiful wasp was found by my buddy Linsi, here in Indianapolis. She is now in Australia and you can follow her blog here. She asked me to ID it for her. I was having a bit of trouble, so I asked Eric Eaton for a some help. He knew right away that it was a Spider Wasp, Tachypompilus ferrugineus. It has a beautiful, rich rusty-colored body offset with black iridescent wings. Ferrugineus is Latin for "rusty", a very fitting name.

A spider wasp will sting the spider in a ferrocious battle, then drag the parasitized victim quite a ways back to its underground nest. Note its long legs, which is a characteristic of spider wasps. I am guessing the long legs aide in dragging the victims. The female spider wasp then lays an egg on the spider and again, the larva will have a fresh meal. Poor spider!

All of these wasps are a valuable part to the circle of life. They are an important part of nature's checks and balances. Not all wasps will attack, so with caution one can enjoy some of the world's most fascinating creatures.

A Curious Find

Winter is a good time to clean my desk. So while moving piles of paper around, out rolled this object. I had picked it up on one of my walks and had meant to take some pics of it earlier in the year. So this morning, I did just that.

The object is about two inches across and very delicate with a thin, papery shell. This is an oak apple gall. A gall is an unusual growth of plant tissues caused by a variety of agents. Insects, mites, fungi, and bacteria can all produce galls in plants. This one is caused by a member of the wasp family, and it has a fascinating life cycle. The wasp is a tiny one, only about a quarter inch in size called Amphibolips confluenta.

Above is the only picture I could find of the beast. Sorry, it is a bit, ummm, dead. This comes from the University of Minnesota. Since the wasp is so tiny, and it has such a unique life cycle, there are not a lot of photos out there. I am bummed. :(

Anyway, on with the story. It starts with a young wasp hatching out of the oak gall. Here in Indiana, oak apple galls usually occur on red, black and scarlet oaks. The male and female wasps will mate, then the female will drop to the ground. She will burrow under the ground and inject eggs in the roots of the oak tree. The larvae will hatch and spend about a year munching away on the roots. Next they will rest in the form of pupae. Then, finally, the wingless females will hatch underground.

The wingless females will crawl up the oak tree trunk in early spring, find a newly developing leaf bud and lay an egg. The single larva will hatch inside of the leaf. It will produce a chemical that will start the formation of the gall. The gall will grow with the larva. The larva will eat and grow until it is ready to pupate, forming a bright green gall. Check here for a pic of the larve that lives inside.

This is a shot of the inside of the gall. Here the larva and pupa spend their time protected from the elements. There are dangers though. Woodpeckers, chickadees and squirrels know there is a tasty morsel inside these galls and will search for these yummy snacks.

Here is the inside of the gall without the outer shell. It feels soft and stringy.

After carefully scraping away all the gobbledeegook (like my scientific lingo?), the chamber is exposed. As you can see, it is no bigger than the end of a pencil.

The outer shell also has a small pinhole, indicating the wasp successfully emerged. Hopefully, it found a mate and the cycle will continue. Oak apple gall wasps usually will not cause too much harm to the trees, so it is not a dangerous pest to worry about.