Unknown Wasp in Washington State is Ichneumon species

danielj

July 11th, 2008 at 12:00 am

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YellowJacket/Paper Wasp or something else?
Daniel,
Thanks for the Reply. We live in Mill Creek, just south of Everett, Western Washington State. We have a bunch of these (20+) flying low all around our front yard. My best guess would be a Paper Wasp or Yellow Jacket, but the coloring doesn’t match any of the pictures I found. Just wondering if we need to have someone come out and take care of them. We’ve check the closest tree and the house eves and don’t see any nests. They don’t seem to go into the back yard, or the neighbors front yard. They are not aggressive at all. They don’t seem to care if we are walking through the yard or not.. Thanks Again..
Stephen

wasps washington stephen Unknown Wasp in Washington State is Ichneumon species wasp washington stephen Unknown Wasp in Washington State is Ichneumon species

hi Stephen,
Thanks for writing back so quickly and providing a location. That is so critical with many identifications. We can tell you that this is NOT a yellow jacket nor a paper wasp, but we are not exactly sure what it is and it will require some research. Meanwhile, we will also contact Eric Eaton for identification assistance.

Daniel:
The wasp is an ichneumon wasp, family Ichneumonidae. Pretty much impossible to give a more specific identification without having the actual specimen to look at under a microscope. As larvae, alll ichneumons are parasitic on other insects (spiders in a few cases).
Eric

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somedude76 wrote:
We found some of these in our yard too. They seem to be about 20 of them flying around our garden. They show up in the morning and are active until just before dusk.
They are not aggressive at all.
Any information on habitat or nesting that you could share? Do they live in a colony that I could exterminate? Just curious. I’ll probably just leave them be since they aren’t aggressive. I do worry some though since we have a four year old. Don’t want her to get stung.
Posted 04 Jul 2011 at 2:25 pm ¶