Organ-pipes

The very distinctive organ-pipe like mud tubes built by Trypoxylon politum, the Orang-pipe Mud-dauber Wasp. The ones with holes are previous years.

These are this year’s. In fact, the darker mud on the top shows it’s still in the works.

I see these tubes much more often then I see the actual wasps. In fact, before last weekend, I had 39 observations of these species on iNaturalist. Only one was of one of the wasp themselves; the rest were these constructions.

Last weekend in Prospect Park, under one of the bridges, I saw several of the wasps in action.

The females construct these tubes with small balls of mud. Since she’s inside here, I suspect that she’s constructing an internal wall, to separate the chambers she stuffs with paralyzed spiders and one of her eggs.