A peaceful and beneficial garden visitor
A peaceful and beneficial garden visitor, this is a black and yellow mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) wasp.
Even though they have bright warning colours, these wasps are not at all aggressive like other wasps. They are solitary parasitoid wasps that build nests out of mud.
After building a cell of the nest, the female wasp captures several spiders. The captured prey are stung and paralyzed before being placed in the nest (usually 6-15 per cell), and then a single egg is deposited on the prey within each cell. The wasp then seals the cell with a thick mud plug. After finishing a series of cells, she leaves and does not return. The larva spins a cocoon and pupates. Eventually, the hatching larva will eat the prey and emerge from the nest.
Stings are rare due to their usually peaceful nature, however nests are aggressively defended.
[Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_yellow_mud_dauber]
A peaceful and beneficial garden visitor
A peaceful and beneficial garden visitor, this is a black and yellow mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) wasp.
Even though they have bright warning colours, these wasps are not at all aggressive like other wasps. They are solitary parasitoid wasps that build nests out of mud.
After building a cell of the nest, the female wasp captures several spiders. The captured prey are stung and paralyzed before being placed in the nest (usually 6-15 per cell), and then a single egg is deposited on the prey within each cell. The wasp then seals the cell with a thick mud plug. After finishing a series of cells, she leaves and does not return. The larva spins a cocoon and pupates. Eventually, the hatching larva will eat the prey and emerge from the nest.
Stings are rare due to their usually peaceful nature, however nests are aggressively defended.
[Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_yellow_mud_dauber]