Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Organ Music

Mud nest tubes made by the Organ-pipe Mud-daubing Wasp (Trypoxylon politum). I’ve been finding a lot of old ones, from previous years, the ones with holes in them. Tucked out of the rain, especially in the nooks and crannies of mausoleums in Green-Wood and the tunnels in Prospect, they can last a few years.

You can see the individual chambers within the tubes here. The female seals an egg up with paralyzed spiders in these chambers. Her larvae eat the spiders and then pupate, emerging as adult wasps the following year. Unless parasites or predators get them first.

I have rarely seen the wasps. Unlike the Yellow-legged Mud-dauber, they’re pretty elusive.

At this mausoleum, the mud tubes are to the side of and behind the columns.

mthew

One response to “Organ Music”

  1. ewakozyra

    I love the idea of a giant insect hotel for a mausoleum!

    Reply

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