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Black wasp/hornet with 4 bright yellow dots
Hi,
Love your site.
I am a Canadian that has moved to central Florida and encounter bugs I have never seen before and can usually identify them from your site. I looked but could not find this hornet or is it a wasp? It is approximately 1" 1/4 to 1"3/8 body, completely black except for 4 bright yellow dots on the back of the abdomen. Sorry for the quality of the pictures, didn’t have my good camera available when I ran into this specimen.
Mike D’Aguilar

Hi Mike,
Because of the large size, we believe this is Campsomeris quadrimaculatus and not the much smaller similarly colored Scolia nobilitata, which only reaches slightly over a centimeter in length. These are Scolid Wasps that prey on the larvae of Scarab Beetles. The female locates the grubs by digging. She then stings and paralyzes it and creates a chamber around the now immobile grub and then lays an egg. Adults visit flowers for nectar and females can sting painfully if provoked.

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