Fuzzy Red and Black ant looking thing
Location: North East Arkansas, United States
September 3, 2010 3:22 pm
Hi. I just found this little horror running around on my kitchen floor. I trapped him under a little plastic container and as soon as I did it started hissing at me! I could hear it from two feet away! Now when I hold the container to my ear (with a lid on of course) it’s constantly making this strange high pitched ’khtkhtkhtkht’ noise. It looks VERY mean. It’s roughly a half an inch long and maybe a little more than a quarter of an inch wide. Red and black striped, very mean looking.
Found in: North Eastern Arkansas
3:15pm
Signature: Jesse
Cow Killer
Hi Jesse,
This is a Velvet Ant, a flightless female wasp in the family Mutillidae. It is a Cow Killer, Dasymutilla occidentalis, and it has earned its common name because the sting is reported to be extremely painful, so those warning colors are well earned. Our favorite part of your letter is your description of the noises made by your Cow Killer. The are able to make noise by stridulation or rubbing body parts together.
Giant Wasp
Location: Nazareth, PA
August 30, 2010 9:53 am
I took this picture yesterday at a picnic in Nazareth, PA. Was about 2” long and had a 1/4” to 1/2” stinger. Any idea what the heck it is?
Todd
Pigeon Horntail
Hi Todd,
The body coloration on this Pigeon Horntail, Tremex columba, is lighter than the typical coloration, but it is represented on at least one image posted to BugGuide. These Wood Wasps lay their eggs in diseased, decaying or cut wood and the larvae spend several years burrowing and feeding on the wood pulp.
Pigeon Horntail
strange but
Location: Wisconsin
August 29, 2010 6:36 pm
I found this bug in my living room in Southeast Wisconsin. It looks like a winged ant but has a super skinny thorax and seems indestructable. I actually burned it before taking this photo and it still was partly alive.
Josh
Unknown Wasp
Hi Josh,
We do not recognize your wasp, but we hope one of our readers will be able to assist in its identification. We wonder perhaps if it might be the little seen male of a species that exhibits sexual dimorphism, like possibly the American Pelecinid, which is only represented by females on BugGuide. At any rate, burning this unknown wasp constitutes unnecessary carnage in our book. Many times people kill benign or beneficial insects because they look fearsome or for other unfathomable reasons.
Eric Eaton provides an identification
Hi, Daniel:
No, that is an ichneumon wasp, possibly in the subfamily Pimplinae:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/35501
Not all Pimplinae have long ovipositors. This specimen appears to have a short one, or else it is broken.
Eric
Large wasp/hornet
Location: Myrtle Beach SC
August 29, 2010 10:06 pm
My cat spoted this very large hornet thing in our tree. I am farm girl and have never seen anything like this. It was about 3 inches long and the width of my thumb.. Very scary looking. The picture does no justice for its actual size. Please help me!
Nikole
Cicada Killer
Hi Nikole,
This is a Cicada Killer, a solitary wasp that preys upon Cicadas to feed its brood. Despite its large size, the Cicada Killer is not an aggressive species and we have not received a verified report of anyone being stung by a Cicada Killer, though it is entirely possible that a female Cicada Killer could sting a person. In previous years, the months of July and August have included numerous requests for Cicada Killer identification, but there were very few submissions this year.
What kind of bug is this?
Giant Ichnuemon
What kind of bug is this?
Location: Warwick, Rhode Island
August 29, 2010 4:17 pm
These bugs just showed up and crawl all over the dead tree on the side of my house the long antenna looking thing seems to maybe suck something out of the tree! I have never seen these before and they look like they could be 2inches long some shorter some longer! Its the end of August so we are slowly going into fall.
Thanks, Dawn Bergeron
Giant Ichnuemon ovipositing
Hi Dawn,
This insect is actually depositing eggs into the tree, not sucking something out as you thought. Several days ago we decided to make the Giant Ichneumon our Bug of the Month for September 2010 so we included information on how the female oviposits her eggs in the wood of dead and dying trees that contain the burrowing larvae of the Pigeon Horntail. The Giant Ichneumon is a parasitoid whose larvae feed solely on the larvae of the Pigeon Horntail. Coincidentally, yesterday we posted an image of a female Pigeon Horntail, another impressive non-stinging member of the order that includes wasps, in the act of oviposition. Though we wrote a lengthy response, we were not able to include images of the actual egg laying or oviposition process. Your photos clearly illustrate the process of a female Giant Ichneumon laying eggs, though your species is different from the species in the Bug of the Month posting, which is Megarhyssa atrata. We suspect your Giant Ichneumon is Megarhyssa macrurus. We are going to combine your letter and images with the previously selected letter to be a joint Bug of the Month posting for September 2010.
Giant Ichneumon Ovipositing
bug
Location: northern wisconsin
August 28, 2010 12:35 pm
just wanted to know what this is
clauson’s
Pigeon Horntail
Dear Clauson’s,
This is a Pigeon Horntail, Tremex columba, one of the non-stinging Wood Wasps whose larvae bore in wood. The female Pigeon Horntail in your photo is in the act of ovipositing. She uses her stingerlike ovipositor to deposit her eggs in diseased wood where the larvae live and feed. We have gotten some nice recent photos of Giant Ichneumons, which are the primary predator of the Pigeon Horntail.
Giant Ichneumon land on sternum
Location: Fairfield, Maine USA
August 27, 2010 11:09 pm
My wife ad I were heading up to our front door when this thing swooped down onto me. It landed on my chest and after a few awkward pictures, it walked up my neck and flew of my ear. It was very long, I would have guessed 5-6 inches, including the ovipositor. Do you think this a Megarhyssa greenei?
Thanks,
James R
Giant Ichneumon
Hi James,
We have never read a good way to distinguish the members of the genus Megarhyssa from one another, other than that Megarhyssa atrata looks significantly different from the other three relatives. This might be Megarhyssa greenei, though in our opinion, it seems to most closely resemble Megarhyssa macrurus, which you may view on BugGuide.
Giant Ichnuemon
Very large wasp with orange band
Location: Fairfield, Maine USA
August 27, 2010 11:02 pm
Dear Bugman,
I was in the Goldenrod today and was passed by an enormous wasp. It looked a lot like the Blue Mud Wasp but it had a bright orange band around it near it’s end. It was probably over 3 inches long, but I could not get very close to it before it flew away. What is this thing? Can they sting?
Thanks,
James R
Thread Waisted Wasp
Hi again James,
You really are amassing up quite a collection of images of your local insects on our site. This Thread Waisted Wasp, Ammophila nigrans, is feeding on goldenrod, as are several of the insects you submitted last week. We really are interested in certain habitats, like the Milkweed Meadow tag we just created, and the Goldenrod Field is another excellent place to observe a variety of invertebrates that are either attracted to the nectar or the creatures feeding on the nectar. According to a comment Eric Eaton posted to BugGuide on Ammophila nigrans: “As adults, they feed on nectar. The larva feeds on caterpillars, paralyzed and stocked in the cell by its mother. These are solitary wasps, so each female excavates her own burrow.” The genus information page on BugGuide has more comprehensive information.
Hello Daniel,
Hopefully you don’t mind the numerous submissions, but I work where I can go out to the goldenrod field
every hour or so, so I always bring camera(s) with me. My next home has large milkweed fields, so maybe
next year I’ll have some different varieties. Thanks for the identification; I never had seen one before.
It’s neat that the name roughly translates as a sand-loving wasp… (from B.G. info)
One thing I noticed is that B.G. lists them from 11-25mm (0.4”-0.98”) but I am certain this one was closer to 2.75”-3” long.
Thanks again,
James
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