Giant Wasp
Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 6:42 AM
Location: South Africa, Western Cape, Near Malmesbury (Swartland, West Coast)
Weather: 38 Degrees Celsius in the shade, 44 in the sun. No wind. No clouds.
Looks: It has the typical wasp body, only much more bulky as opposed to slender, its really HUGE! Probably 5-6cm when straight. The whole body is black. The tentacles (or radars, what ever it might be called) are dark orange about 1mm thick and spirals once. The eyes are about 3mm wide. The wings and legs are also the same dark orange as the tentacles. The stinger, when pushed out fully is probably about 8mm long, very thin and curves slightly (it looks as it might be a very painful sting). The wasp did seem kind of clumsy. It made a lot of noise when flying. Wingspan, probably about 3.5-4cm. That’s it, I think.
I’ve lived in the western cape and have never seen a WASP come even close to the size of this big boy.
Mr?
South Africa, West Coast
probably Tarantula Hawk from South Africa
Dear Mr?
This is a Spider Wasp in the family Pompilidae. It bears an uncanny resemblance to a North American Tarantula Hawk in the genus Pepsis. According to Wikipedia, there are Tarantula Hawks in Africa. The sting of a female Tarantula Hawk is reported to be one of the most painful of all wasp stings.
Unknown Wasp in North Los Angeles.
Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 9:25 AM
Dear What’sthatbug,
I’ve been a big fan of your site for ages.
I found this little wasp in Tujunga, far northern Los Angeles, CA. during mid/late summer.
It’s a small / med sized wasp. When I found it it was sitting on a twig, munching on the twig, or maybe eating something off of it. But I couldn’t see that he was actually eating the twig itself. These are quite common there but even after looking through all 15 wasp pages in your site and googleing a million things I could not find a name for this little guy/girl.
I hope you can Identify it, I’m pretty much obsessed with all living creatures and I’m dieing to know what kind of wasp this is so i can do some research on it. Thanks a bunch!! Love your site!!
Nitsan S.
Tujunga, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Golden Paper Wasp
Dear Nitsan,
Despite going global with the world wide web, we still have a nostalgia for our humble local photocopied zine of origin, when most of our identifications were from the Los Angeles area. This is a Paper Wasp, Polistes aurifer according to BugGuide, or a subspecies, Polisted fuscatus aurifer according to Charles Hogue in Insects of the Los Angeles Basin. Wasps from this family chew bark and wood pulp into a papery substance for the production of the nest.
Update:
Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:26:19 -0800 (PST)
Hi, Daniel:
Just an added note to the “golden paper wasp” post….The specimen is a male. I can tell by the ’square,’ yellow face (females have triangular, darker faces) and the long antennae, curled at the tip (females have shorter, uncurled antennae).
Eric
Double red headed bug?
Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Hi,
I was mineral hounding in southern california a few days ago and found this bug(?) underneath a stone. Although the picture isn`t good, you can recognize its kind of fluffy red head, the antennae and the six legs. The the size was just below an inch.
Thank you for your help
Patrick
Riverside, California
Velvet Ant
Hi Patrick,
Your photo is blurry, and we are far from experts in the genus Dasymutilla, the Velvet Ants. Female Velvet Ants are flightless wasps that can sting painfully. The harmless male wasps have wings. If we were to hazard a guess, we would saty that this is Dasymutilla aureola pacifica based on images posted to BugGuide.
colorful sawfly larva
Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 10:49 AM
Hi WTB,
I took these photos more than two decades ago in Rhode Island, near an old lime kiln (I was looking for land snails). I always thought this was a caterpillar, but recently when I couldn’t find it in Caterpillars of Eastern North America, I was perplexed. I e-mailed the author of that book, David Wagner, and sent him these photos. He identified it as the poison-ivy-eating sawfly larva. I search the WTB pages and could not find this sawfly larva pictured, so I thought perhaps you would like it.
Keep up the good bug work!
Jeannie
Rhode Island
Poison Ivy Sawfly
Hi Jeannie,
Long ago we posted an image of an unidentified Sawfly that looked similar. Thanks for sending your photo of a Poison Ivy Sawfly. Out of curiosity, do you have a scientific name? We did a web search of Poison Ivy Sawfly and found Arge humeralis. There is a matching image on BugGuide. We searched our archives for the image we posted in 2007, and sure enough, it was found on Poison Ivy.
Wasp?
Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 9:11 AM
This was taken at night in Ontario Canada while camping at a provincial park.
Brett
Ontario Canada
Giant Ichneumons
Hi Brett,
We have a sneaking suspicion that this observation did not happen while camping this week. These are Giant Ichneumons in the genus Megarhyssa, most likely Megarhyssa macrurus. Giant Ichneumons are related to Wasps since they are in the same insect order, but they are in a different family. These are females and they are ovipositing. Giant Ichneumons are parasitic on the larva of wood boring insects, especially the Pigeon Horntail. The female Giant Ichneumon locates the tunnel of one of the wood boring larvae and uses her nearly five inch long ovipositor to deposit an egg deep inside the infested tree.
Pimpla Instigator?
Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 4:03 PM
We found 5 or 6 of these guys in our house over the past 24 hours. It’s a 6 legged insect with wings and a longish ’stinger’ tail. I took a picture and found it to have very large ‘eyes’ and long antennae. We’re wondering if this bug is common (we’ve never seen it before) and if we should be worried about it with our pets? Any help would be appreciated!
Jason
Northern Ontario, Canada
Ichneumon, probably subfamily Pimplinae
Hi Jason,
While we cannot say for sure that this is Pimpla instigator, we are fairly confident that it is an Ichneumon in the Subfamily Pimplinae. BugGuide does not provide much information on this subfamily, but Ichneumons are parasitic on insects and other arthropods, and will not harm humans or their pets.
Weird beetle or ant I have never seen before
Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 1:31 PM
We were vacationing in the mountains of North Carolina and found this beetle looking thing. It was very fast and we found it on 2 different occasions during the same trip. Both were around 11:00 am or so. If you can’t help identify that is ok, I was just really curious what it might have been is all.
Thanks!!
Jamie of Michigan
Franklin, North Carolina
Cow Killer
Hi Jamie,
Your discovery is known as a Cow Killer because of its painful sting. Cow Killers, Dasymutilla occidentalis, are a species of Velvet Ant and Velvet Ants are actually flightless female wasps.
Paper Wasp Nest – Now What?
Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Dear Bugman,
For almost two months now, I’ve been watching and photographing a paper wap nest in my back yard here in Hawthorne, California. It fell Thanksgiving Day from it’s location under a shelf in what we call “The Sanctuary”. Image 1 is of one of the wasps still on the nest at that time. I’m sure it’s in the genus Polistes, but it doesn’t look exactly like the photos of Polistes Dominulus I find posted on your site. Image 2 is what is left of the nest this morning, the day after Thansgiving. What is perplexing me is pictured in the third image I’ve attached. There are a bunch of these wasps congregating at the exact spot where the nest was originally. What are they doing?
Anna
Hawthorne, California
Paper Wasp Nest
Hi Anna,
We believe your Paper Wasps are Polistes aurifer, named the Golden Polistes by Charles Hogue who at the time his book, Insects of the Los Angeles Basin was reprinted in 1993, still considered this to be a subspecies of Polistes fuscatus. BugGuide does consider it to be a separate Western species. You didn’t indicate what caused the nest to fall. We suspect it was the recent deluge and winds in Southern California just before Thanksgiving.
Paper Wasp Nest fallen to ground
According to Hogue: “The umbrella-shaped nests, which are made of a peper-like substance similar to that produced by the Yellow Jacket, are composed of a single layer of cells and attached by a short stem to the underside of overhanging surfaces (eaves or fence rails, for example). Adult wasps gather caterpillars, which they skin and chew before feeding them to the grub-like larvae developing in the cells.” The reason the wasps have congregated around the nest site is that for the past few months, they have been in the habit if returning to the nest. Much like people who have “lost everything” in a fire or other disaster, if the site is still attractive, your wasps may choose to rebuild in the same location.
Paper Wasps Nestless
mexican honey wasp
Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 1:56 PM
i am in southern mexico. these wasps make honey. they do not sting, i know this because my worker moved the hive with his bare hand and not one “ouch” or “chinga” as they say here.
wikipedia shows a different type, with yellow bands and say they sting. are these the same?
mark grossman
Oaxaca, Mexico
Mexican Honey Wasps
Hi Mark,
The information we have been able to locate online, including on the Texan Entomology page and on BugGuide, identifies the Mexican Honey Wasp as Brachygastra mellifica. According to BugGuide, the Mexican Honey Wasp is : “Eusocial, that is, completely social, with worker and reproductive castes. More than one queen per hive, and there are females present with ovaries intermediate in size between workers and queens. Form large colonies by swarming (coordinated groups of queens and workers). Store honey, but do not cap cells, as do bees. Nests are perennial, built in low trees, with as many as 50,000 cells. Remarks One of the very few insects other than bees to produce and store honey.” It is possible this is a color variation, a subspecies, or a different species in the same genus.
Mexican Honey Wasps
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Posted 28 November 2008
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Black insect with fuzzy redish orange abdomen
Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Found in Peoria, Arizona in November. A solid looking 1 1/4 inch long and maybe a 1/2 inch wide insect, deep black with a vibrant redish-orange fuzzy abdomen. No wings & very busy walking around looking for something. If you were going to draw this critter, you would use a sharpie due to its solid features.
The Nicoloffs
Peoria, AZ (out in the desert)
Velvet Ant
Dear Nicoloffs,
This is a Velvet Ant, one of a colorful group of wasps in the family Mutillidae. Male Velvet Ants have wings, but females are flightless and resemble colorful hairy ants. Only the female is capable of stinging, and the sting of several species is quite painful. We believe, based on images posted to BugGuide that your Velvet Ant is Dasymutilla magnifica, but the photo is so blurry, it is impossible to be certain.
Holy bigness!
Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 3:41 PM
Holy bigness!
This thing FREAKED my husband out today when he found it on our recycle bin. Being “nature girl” I had to run right over and get a close look! It’s very weak, or at least acts like it. I haven’t seen it fly at all but I’m not sure if it’s because it’s colder than usual here or what. I’ve Googled my little fingers away and I’m thinking it might be a queen European Hornet. The thing is, I live in Lehigh Acres, Florida. I haven’t found any sites that mentioned them being in Southwest Florida. The way I look at it is… They fly! – They can go anywhere! Could you please help me identify it? Also, just how much danger am I in when handling it? Could I just move it somewhere else? I’m really not into killing things!
Curious Nature Girl
Lehigh Acres, Florida
Cicada Killer
Hi Curious Nature Girl,
This is a Cicada Killer, a large wasp that paralyzed Cicadas to feed to its young. The curious thing for us is that we generally get our Cicada Killer questions in July and August, and occasionally into September, but late November is very late. We have a dedicated portion of our site specifically for Cicada Killers and we have featured the Cicada Killer as a Bug of the Month recently. Now that you know what it is, you should be able to find endless information online. We have received a single report of a sting from a Cicada Killer. They are not aggressive, but males will defend their territory and though they buzz people, male Cicada Killers do not possess stingers.
Woolly caterpillar ID?
Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:16 PM
Hi, Bugman!
I love your site, and I’ve used it many times to identify creepy and not so creepy crawlers, hoppers and fliers that I’ve found while out photographing the wonders of nature. However, I browsed your caterpillar category all the way back to 2005, and didn’t see one of these. The closest was the ‘Laugher’.
This past September, I noticed something white and fluffy on a tree or bush (sorry! I can’t now remember which). On close inspection, it turned out to be a caterpillar, and there wasn’t just one, but many.
They looked for all the world as though they were covered in cotton wool shag carpeting. I wish I could tell you what sort of bush or tree they were feeding on, but I know as much about horticulture as I do entomology, and that’s not a whole lot. Plus I kinda, sorta forgot to take note.
These pics were taken at ~15:40 on the 7th of September in Southwestern Ontario, in an area with diverse habitats nearby. Lots of woods, open spaces, small marshy spots.
I severely reduced the size of the images to save bandwidth, but they should be large enough to identify the subject. If you do want larger ones, you need only ask!
Thanks in advance!!
Frank
Southwestern Ontario, Canada
Butternut Woolly Worm
Hi Frank,
Though it looks like a caterpillar, the Butternut Woolly Worm, Eriocampa juglandis, is actually a Sawfly Larva. Sawflies are non-stinging relatives of wasps and bees. The Butternut Woolly Worm feeds on the leaves of black walnut, butternut and hickory.
Butternut Woolly Worm
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