Digging wasp

[Catherine Otto]

Greetings,

I was in Eugene yesterday and this morning and found a very interesting sight: a group of nesting holes in a dry open patch of soil and as I looked a wasp emerged from one of the holes and began to walk around the dirt area outside the hole. Then it went back inside, sometimes sitting at the entrance of the hole looking out. This was a very beautiful thread waisted wasp, one of the ‘digger wasps.’ When I searched the internet I found info on the Great Golden Digger Wasp, which this could possibly be.

I read that these wasps paralyze insects and take them to the nest where they lay an egg on their prey. The larva uses the insect for food, then pupates.

I wonder if any of you have more info on these wasps. I’m wondering if they are reproducing now and at which point the last of the young will pupate and get ready to overwinter. I wonder how many young are produced each summer and how many generations.

They are lovely wasps! I should have put something in the photo for scale but I estimate the openings of each tunnel were between the size of a nickel and a quarter. The wasp was rather large, about 1.5 inches long.

If any of you visit REI in Eugene, the soil patch was along the street on Lawrence directly across from the merchandise pick up area, in the soil between sidewalk and street.

Catherine Otto
Corvallis

[Bill Gerth]

Hi Catherine,

That's super cool! I know folks who have seen these wasps around, but I have not seen one myself. The people I've know who've seen them, though, have seen the adults visiting flowers, but have not seen the nesting areas. Nice find!

Here is some info from the Missouri Department of Conservation to answer your questions:

Life cycle

This species spends about 1–2 months as an adult before dying. Females excavate long vertical main tunnels in the ground, with nest cells located in short side tunnels. Most nests have 2 or 3 cells, and a female usually digs 5 or 6 nests during her few months of summer activity. Sometimes two females will jointly provision a single nest. The young pass the winter underground in their nest burrows before emerging as adults the following year.

Also, the are a very widespread species, occuring all throughout North America east to west from southern Canada, through all the contiguous 48 US states, down through Mexico and Central America, and as far south as Ecuador, Peru and Brazil in South America.

Thanks for sharing! Enjoy!
Cheers,
Bill

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mid-Valley Nature" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mid-valley-nat...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mid-valley-nature/7B711D45-1BB1-4534-A724-2D6ED458F080%40comcast.net.
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mid-Valley Nature" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mid-valley-nat...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mid-valley-nature/7B711D45-1BB1-4534-A724-2D6ED458F080%40comcast.net.