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food chainBald Faced Hornet eating caterpillar
Hello again bugman,
Couldn’t beleive it when I seen it, this hornet swooped down on a caterpillar, picked it up, landed on a leaf nearby and started stinging it to death! Sat and watched it a while until he finally got piturbed at me and picked the caterpillar back up and flew off again. Good pics though. Thought you might find them interesting. Enjoy.
CC
Hi CC,
This is not a hornet but a Paper Wasp, genus Polistes. The photos aren’t clear enough to give an exaxt species. Hornets do not have the narrow “wasp-waist” that is evident in your photo. Hornets are stockier in build. The caterpillar is not food for the wasp, but food for the young. Adult feed on nectar and pollen.
Ed. Note Correction: (12/03/2005)
ID corrections, etc. I’ve just discovered your excellent site (directed there by “This is True”), and as a hymenopterist have a few comments: The picture of “Paper Wasp stinging Caterpillar” (10/11/2005) looks to me rather to be a species in the subfamily Eumeninae, probably one of the potter wasps (not a paper wasp). I’m not that familiar with the North American species, but it certainly isn’t a Polistes. (Also see the potter wasp photo (09/02/2005) of a very similar species.) I hope these comments are useful. Denis
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