Dragonfly / Hornet / ?
Good Day,
I haven’t seen this type of flying insect in our area (Southern Ontario) until it tried to dive bomb my head while I was sitting on our deck. It eventually landed on our shed and I was able to take a couple of shots. It’s body is about 2" long. Including the tail it is about 5-6" long! Thanks for any info you can provide. Great site!
Chris Glos
Windsor, Ontario

Hi Chris,
This is a Giant Ichneumon, Megarhyssa macrurus, and though it is related to wasps, it does not sting. That is an ovipositor for laying eggs inside wood where the larva parasitize boring insects.

Anecdote
An humorous, albeit tragic, anecdote that I thought you might enjoy: I work in a paving/construction office which is connected to a large open garage/storage area which is rather exposed to the outside. Our safety director needed some papers that had been stored away in the mezzanine area above the garage. While in the mezzanine, she encountered this Giant Ichneumon, which repeatedly “dive-bombed” her. Not knowing what this bug was and mistaking its ovipositor for a monstrous stinger, she screamed, tripped and fell, wet herself (luckily she had a pair of extra pants downstairs), and continued screaming, drawing a small crowd of concerned coworkers who gathered at the bottom of the stairway to the mezzanine. One brave individual ran upstairs and, sadly, killed the poor bug as our safety director ran down the stairs ranting about its gigantic proportions and “prehistoric” features. Intrigued by her tale of wonder, a coworker and I went up to look at the dead bug, and were intrigued but unimpressed. There were many guesses as to what the bug was, ranging from a mayfly, to a cicada wasp, to a robber fly, but thanks to your website I was able to determine that it was a Giant Ichneumon. My coworker took the dead bug home and placed it into some heated glycerine to form the bar of soap pictured, so that it could preserved and returned to our safety director to commemorate the event. While I know the insect’s untimely death is saddening, I found this story to be too ridiculous to not send to you. Thanks for your amazing website!!!
Jen Price

Hi Jen,
We are greatly amused at the irony that your safety director tripped and fell running from a totally harmless Giant Ichneumon. Surely, thousands of needless accidents occur, perhaps even daily, because of the fear generated by arthropod encounters. We are also amused as we toyed with the idea of having homemade soaps with plastic insects imbedded inside made available on our giftshop page.

Long tailed wasp
Hi Bugman,
I tried looking on your site earlier today and couldn’t identify this. My mom spent a bit more time on the site and was able to identify this bug as a type of wasp. What we’re wondering is what it was doing. It kept flipping its body up over its head and holding on to the long tail with its back legs, then pulling. It was doing this for hours. It looked like the wasp was trying to pull the tail off! Do they do this?
The Demeritt Family

Hi Demeritt Family,
We can’t imagine how you missed the photo of the Giant Ichneumon on our homepage. This is Megarhyssa atrata, a female. The long tail is an ovipositor that the female uses to lay eggs deep inside rotting wood of trees. Such wood is often infested by wood boring grubs, especially those of the Pigeon Horntail, and those grubs are the food for the young larval Ichneumon. The odd thing about your photo is that the Ichneumon is trying to lay eggs in wooden siding. Perhaps you have a grub infestation.

Great pic but don’t know what it is? Maybe a tree wasp cousin?
Shot this pic 3 days ago in our backyard. A friend said it is kind of a tree wasp that uses its orange feelers to locate bugs under tree bark, then drills into the bark and inserts an egg into the bug via the black feeler. Pretty fancy work! Don’t know its name.
Ian Taylor
Huntsville, Ontario

Hi Ian,
What a truly spectacular photo of a Giant Ichneumon, Megarhyssa atrata. The explanation your friend gave you is essentially correct.

Identification Help Please
Could you help me identify this bug? It was photographed in western North Carolina last week. I have lived here 30 years and never seen anything like it.Thanks in advance,
Kevin

Hi Kevin,
What a great photo of Megarhyssa atrata, one of the Giant Ichneumons.

Horntail? (Kirkland, WA)
I have two, sometimes three of these, everyday, on the south facing windows. On the inside. Have not seen these insects around the home in previous years, but two events may explain (aside from the season). The first is the neighbor’s house was destrpyed by fire, the second I have had the torch down roof replaced. Now some of these insects I see each day have an ovipositor and some like this one pictured, don’t. And then again, some have an orange banding around their bodies and not yellow … and there appears to be an armored shell. The picture was taken using a Nikon Coolpix 775. The insect is in a glass jar. Wasps or horntails?
regards
chrisE

Hi chrisE,
This appears to be a male Ichneumon. Females have the long ovipositors. Eggs are laid deep inside dead and dying trees since the larval food is wood boring insects. Ichneumons are related to wasps. Eric Eaton added the following: ” Oh, that male ichneumon could be a female. Not all female ichneumons have a long ovipositor. In fact, most don’t.”