The Urban Pantheist

I was called up to see a tree up in a non-public part of the zoo, which (the thought was) might have a hornet's nest in it. A hornet's nest in a tree is pretty obvious--either it's a big gray paper football, or it's hidden in a big dead cavity in the tree. This was a pretty small elm, with no big holes, no big paper nests, but plenty of wasps and hornets on and around it. However, there were other insects involved as well, such as this Calliphorid carrion fly.

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This ichneumonoid wasp is the test subject for my use of the bugalien bug catcher. It's a clear plastic pac man that you clomp over the insect or spider you want to catch. So far it's only worked for me for relatively large and slow bugs.


I like that it allows you to catch and release beneficial insects like this one without harming them. Although you could easily mishandle the clomper and maim a bug in the attempt to catch.

How come a wasp shows up at a moth night? This particular type of parasitoid ichneumonid* wasp is nocturnal, and has a history of appearing at porch lights. It flies at night looking for sleepy caterpillars. You can see this one cleaning its very long antennae--doubtlessly important for finding its hosts. It penetrates their hide with a short sharp ovipositor, and places an egg within. The wasp grub consumes the caterpillar, depriving the world of a moth but giving us another glorious orange Enicospilus** wasp.


This one, not content to land on the lighted sheet, landed on the light itself.

* "tracker"

** Boy can I find nothing at all about the apparent nonsense word "Enicospilus."

Face down, abdomen up, that's the way she likes to dig a burrow for her eggs. Then this golden digger wasp Sphex ichneumonius* will hunt for an animal in the Tettigoniidae** family--a katydid, in other words--sting it to paralyze it, drag it into the burrow and lay an egg on it. The wasp grub then enjoys fresh insect flesh as it grows. In this case, however, the wasp was digging in sand that was about 2 inches deep over asphalt. Hopefully she found a more appropriate place to raise her young.



* "Mongoose wasp"

** from Greek τεττιξ (τεττιγ-) 'cicada'

A mason wasp (Family Eumeninae*) drinks some raspberry nectar to get energy for her tasks. Those tasks: 1. build a chamber of dirt and saliva 2. find, and sting to paralyze, a caterpillar 3. place that caterpillar in the chamber and lay an egg on it 4. repeat.


* Named for the Greek general Eumenes (which means "friendly")

At the end of the autumn, the fertile males and females are born. They leave the nest and mate. The males die. The fertilized females seek shelter--under the loose bark of a dead tree perhaps, or in the gap of the exterior of a worn and shoddy building. That's how this would-be yellow jacket queen (Vespula sp. or Dolichovespula sp.) ended up indoors. Disoriented from the long winter and working off of reserves of energy, she headed the wrong way from her hiding place, emerging into a room and heading toward a full-spectrum fluorescent light instead of the light of day.

Her resemblance to the European paper wasp ends at her black antennae (the EPW's are orange) and her stout body. Her workers, should she be successful in establishing a nest will be as small as houseflies, and more protective of their home than the average guard dog. I can knock down a EPW nest with a short stick and no more protection than sunglasses and a baseball cap. A yellow jacket nest might require a full tyvek suit and bee veil to safely tackle.

Well, not the brown anoles--these are pretty much everywhere. Nothing weird about little brown lizards darting around everywhere you go.

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Kikipuff and I were eating lunch outside at a picnic table when she began to be vexed by a single persistent yellow jacket worker. The wasp was intent on sampling my friend's chicken sandwich. Kiki ripped a chunk off of a chicken nugget and set it aside as an offering. The wasp's behavior didn't change. I realized that while the insect had originally oriented by scent, now she remembered the location of the food source and was not to be dissuaded. We slid down the bench and Kiki left the chunk of chicken at her now vacant spot on the table. Immediately the yellow jacket landed at the meat and took her time cutting a piece, before flying off to bring it to the larvae back in the nest.

A yellow jacket worker guards the entrance to a subterranean nest.