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Great Black Wasp - Sphex pensylvanicus
Order Hymenoptera / Suborder Apocrita / Superfamily Sphecoidea / Family
Sphecidae -- cicadakillers, mud daubers, sand wasps, sphecid wasps
Live adult female wasp photographed at Winfield Mounds Forest Preserve,
DuPage County IL USA July 4, 2005. Size: 35mm |
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Sphex Pensylvanicus, commonly called katydid hunter or
great black wasp
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| This predatory wasp generally preys on katydids
(family Tettigoniidae) in genera
Microcentrum and Scudderia.
A female wasp will dig a burrow and provision it
with 1-3 insects, laying a single egg upon each one.
When the eggs hatch, the resulting larvae feed on
the still-living but paralyzed host. (Eew).
This female wasp is the largest I've ever seen -
I've measured it accurately at 35mm (males are
smaller). It actually makes a rustling sound when it
flies, the wings are so large - reminiscent of the
sound a mantis makes when lumbering into the air.
Awesome! |
Katydid Hunter
| I often wonder why this wasp's compound eyes
do not present anything but a flat, glossy
surface. Many bees in the Hymenoptera family
Halictidae, praying mantids, various
butterflies, dragonflies and many other
arthropods' eyes exhibit "pupils" or other
geometric patterns. |
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