Two More Mountain Minters

One of the Ammophila thread-waisted sand wasps. Perhaps A. nigricans. (There are some 62 species in this genus in North America according to bugguide.net.) These are caterpillar and sawfly larvae hunters.

Now, this surprised me. I mean, look at this beast: everything here says wasp.

It is, however, a Two-banded Cellophane-cuckoo Bee/Epeolus bifasciatus. Family Apidae (“Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies”).

I don’t make the rules. Bees, of course, evolved from wasps, so maybe this was a short jump. Anyway, this is a parasite of the Broad-footed Cellophane Bee Colletes latitarsis, a species not well represented locally. And this is the first iNat observation for the city and Long Island.