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.”

Wasp of the Weekend

Wait a minute, who’s this running over the dirt spoil piles of Eastern Cicada-killer Wasp burrows?
There’s more than one big blue-black wasp species out there, and they can be difficult to ID at a glance. But this one scurrying around the Cicada-killers was giving a clue just by her actions. That and the long “neck.” The Steel-blue Cricket-hunter Wasp (Chlorion aerarium) is evidently darker in the east than in the west. According to a note on bugguide.net, they sometimes dig their nests next to Cicada-killers. As the name suggests, Steel-blues hunt crickets for their larvae, so these two wasp species are not competing with each other.


mthew

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