Have you noticed all the parts of a wasp’s mouth? That’s the tongue in the center there, reaching into the nectar, but that’s not the half of it.
This is Ammophila pictipennis, I think, one of the thread-waisted wasps.
Here’s a European Hornet, hanging from at least one foot, devouring a Western Honey Bee. These big hornets are relatively slow fliers and seem to miss most of their tackle-like approaches to prey, but they clearly hit enough to carry on.
It was a cool morning, and I didn’t see any of these ubiquitous European Paper Wasps out and about until I happened to spy one of their nests in the plantings.
These are relatively small, uncovered nests, compared to:
The football-sized paper-wrapped nests of Bald-faced Hornets.
This German Yellowjacket was obsessed with my boots, flying around them, landing besides them, and at one point climbing up one of them. I moved a few feet away, and the process repeated itself. Did it again, and it happened again. Finally lost the wasp by moving further away.
Eumenes something-or-other-should-be-distinctive, one of the pottery and mason wasps. A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Share
This work by Matthew Wills is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Backyard and Beyond 
0 Responses to “Some Wasps”