Bees and wasps in our garden

Amazing, the creatures you find when you start looking. I had never heard of ichneumons until I developed an interest in insects, let alone spotted one, even though, as the pictures show, they can be quite colorful. Ichneumons are a very large group of insects, who prey on other insects to feed their larvae. The two photos above are of the same female Cryptanura septentrionalis. The one at left, clearly a different species, is a male.

This one was actually indoors - at first glance, you might mistake it for a mosquito, because it dances around in its light-weight way in a similar fashion. But the second glance shows it's something quite different: another ichneumon, a female in the Netelia genus. See the really long antennae? It's nearly impossible to get them in focus, since they stick out so far from the rest of the body.

Looking fairly similar to the one above, this male ichneumon is a representative of Enicospilus purgatus. The smaller black protrusions between its eyes are a striking feature on this one. I found it one evening just climbing away amid low-growing foliage, never once using its wings. I wonder if it had just emerged and wasn't yet able to fly.

This elegant little thing is a braconid wasp. The long ovipositor leaves no doubt that it's a female.

Spider wasps are usually seen rummaging through debris at ground level, in search of the spiders they paralyze as food for their larvae, but this one (Calicurgus hyalinatus) was flying around some garden foliage.

Potters wasps build nests of mud, where their larvae live on caterpillars brought to them by their doting mothers. This one is most likely a female Eumenes fraternus, here shown feasting on fennel flowers.

This four-toothed mason wasp (Monobia quadridens) is common through the eastern United States. It usually nests in wood borings. I found the one pictured here enjoying the watercress flowers in our big pond's filtration bog.

Apparently, the great golden digger wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus) only flies a few weeks out of the year in these Northern reaches of its territory - so perhaps I should feel lucky he chose a flower in our garden to sit down on. I was just happy he didn't sit down on me... Both this year and last year, we first spotted it around mid-July, and both times it was enjoying our sea hollies.

This fella looked like he was a bit injured, and was crawling around near our pond. I have it from a good source that this is a grass-carrier wasp (Isodontia apicalis), recognizable by the silver face and the white hairs on its midsection.

Handsome brown paper wasps (most likely Polistes fuscatus, the northern paper wasp) help themselves to some honeydew left by aphids on our paulownia tree. Even though the one above looks really ticked off, they're not particularly agressive.

We have paper wasps in Texas, too. This is a different species from the one above (Polistes metricus), but overall quite similar. They like to build their nests in the overhang above our patio and under our eaves, and generally hang out around the garden, although I don't think they take nectar from flowers. This female is inspecting a Cape honeysuckle that's still in bloom in mid-November.
Texas, November 2017

This is a yellowjacket paper wasp (Polistes dominulus), which looks somewhat similar to the yellowjackets often seen buzzing around trashcans, but is not closely related. Introduced from Eurasia in the 1980s, it has colonized most of the U.S. by now. They can be agressive if their nest is threatened, but are perfectly peaceful buzzing through the garden in search of insect prey. The one shown here is a male, as evidenced by his yellow face and hooked antennae.

Another paper wasp, this is Polistes exclamans, which occurs in a large swath of the central and eastern United States. These social wasps nest under roofs and in trees, and prey on caterpillars. Good to have around to balance out the local ecosystem.
Pennsylvania, September 2009
Also seen in Texas, June 2017

Another black wasp, this one with a shiny metallic-blue rear end. A blue mud dauber (Chalybion californicum), seemed more agressive than most wasps I encounter - so I didn't get too close with the camera.

Here we have another mud dauber: the yellow-legged mud dauber wasp (Sceliphron caementarium), which I believe is responsible for most of the mud structures we find attached to various surfaces around our patio. There must be quite a few around, but I don't see them often in the garden areas, so I wasn't aware that this was an old familiar friend when I spotted it sitting quite persistently on some low-growing plant one late afternoon in spring. The species is widespread through North America, and lives a solitary life. It probably likes our patio for building its nests because of its proximity to our pond, which provides a ready source of building material.
Texas, May 2024

This potter wasp, here seen extracting the sweet goodness of a Texas green eyes (Berlandiera texana) flower, is a member of the genus Euodynerus, most likely species Euodynerus hidalgo. Potter wasps are so named for the urn-shaped solitary nests they build for their developing larvae, which they supply with paralyzed prey, such as larvae of other insects and spiders.
Texas, May 2022

Sawflies

Another group of members of the hymenoptera, the order that includes bees and wasps, are the sawflies. I see more of their larvae (a few of which you can see on the crawlers page) than adults, but here's a couple:

I could see this argid sawfly (argidae family) from a ways away, gorging himself on coriander flowers. The combination of the shiny black wings and the red body contrasted strikingly with the white flowers.

On a warm early-June afternoon, on a stroll past our big pond's filtration area, I spotted this little sawfly on a Hibiscus moscheutos plant. As I took aim with my camera, I saw several more, so they were definitely in their happy spot. Sure enough, this is a hibiscus sawfly (Atomacera decepta). Which means I may return to the plant one of these days to find its leaves decimated by sawfly larvae (I have a photo of the larval stage of this species at my crawlers page).

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