Black Cricket Hunter Wasp

Hunting wasps are members of various taxa of the insect order hymenoptera their habits and affinities vary in many ways but all practise parental care of their larvae in that they capture prey usually insects to feed their larvae.

Black cricket hunter wasp. The steel blued cricket hunter is larger however and in a different genus. Another species sometimes referred to as the steel blue cricket killer is about 1 1 4 inches long and is a beautiful metallic blue color with black wings. Also known as the great black wasp the steel blue cricket hunter and the katydid hunter the black wasp is a highly beneficial pollinator and predator who is not known to be aggressive to people. Adult female wasps hunt for insects after laying fertilized eggs in this underground nest.

A medium sized wasp about an inch long 25 mm black with iridescent blue overtones on the body and wings. Blue green metallic cricket hunter wasp carrying its black field cricket prey. Their legs and antennae are black. Other eastern washington wasps.

Adult cricket hunters feed on flower nectar. They spend much of their time searching for crickets which they attempt to sting capture and transport live to their nest. The wasp seems perfectly built for this job. They move with quick nervous actions in sandy and bare soil areas flying readily when approached.

It is black with yellow markings on the thorax and abdomen with rusty colored wings. You will see that the red and black wasp is carrying a grasshopper about twice its size. The wasp s rear. Whether solitary or social most species construct some form of protection or nest in which they hide the prey and in which the larvae can feed and pupate in.

These chunky wasps were observed in late summer. The wasp in the top two pictures measured roughly 1 1 4 inch long while the specimen in the third exceeded 1 3 4 inch long. Each egg laid in a tunnel and a katydid or cricket is placed next to it. They are smaller wasps about 5 8 inch long.

It is similar in appearance and can be confused with a family member the blue mud dauber also present in this area. The caterpillar hunter wasp is one of several with that common name due to the female s habit of stocking her nesting tube with paralyzed caterpillars as food for her larvae. Males and females look alike except that. Steel blue cricket hunters are bluish black slender wasps with transparent dark blue wings.

Its mandibles hold the grasshopper s antennae and its two pairs of front legs are wrapped around the grasshopper as if in an embrace. Green cricket hunter wasp. After a cricket victim has been subdued and carried to suitable shelter the female lays on it a single egg. Click on the photo above to enlarge it.

Great black wasps are part of the digger wasp family creating burrows in the soil. Barb ogg contributed the photo of a cicada killer wasp on basil.