From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Warwood

I have noticed a predatory insect at least the length of a wasp and the girth of a bee. The neck and head anatomy is that of a bee, i.e. large eyes, antenna that of a bee. The thorax area is that of like a mud wasp with white tipped inner wings, black outer wings, the abdomen more bee-like and lined or segmented but not yellow-black but more gray-black. It moves much faster than a wasp, bee or SVB. It lites on or near vegetation occasionally, when I could get a good glimpse of it. I hadn't noticed this wonderful insect until about Aug. this year, not before this year. It has literally sucked the life and insides out of the SVB moth as I have found two of their carcasses on top of leaves. I saw it on top of one and it was on a beetle as well leaving the same effect. There have been about a dozen mostly around my pumpkin patch. This is obviously a predatory (in a good way) insect. I will research this apparently wonderful predator, but in the meantime are there any insect folks or anyone having knowledge of what this is. I may even backtrack to see if I may have sprayed anything, or look into what they like culturally to attract this insect etc. I have heard about predatory attractants for SVBs and traps, but will definitely investigate this natural wonder. P.S. IT IS NOT THE MALE SVB MOTH or squash bee, I know what they look like.
Thanks ahead. Don

9/1/2008 8:20:25 AM

South Bloomfield, Ohio

Last year, I was treated to the appearance of cicada killers. They are a very scary looking wasp-like insect on a much larger scale.

They do not bother us in the pumpkin patch and tend to burrow into the groud beneath the outer foliage. What you describe sounds very familiar and, before last year, had no prior experience with them.

They didn't seem phased by Permethrin, but do not like Warrior Z and now tend to burrow on the outer fringes of the plants.

Do a search for "cicada killers" and see if this isn't the insect you're seeing.

9/1/2008 11:05:06 AM

Long Island,New York

There are many many predatory insects out there and a whole bunch of them are wasps.Did this wasp-like creature flick its wings as it walked about the surface it landed on btw?
There are many varieties of mud wasps and burrowing wasps that attack other critters....inchworms, spiders, cicadas, pretty much anything that moves......stings them to immobilize, then flies them back to a burrow/nest, catacomb to deposit them with a wasp egg....the egg hatches and feasts on the still alive but paralized food source. You can usually scrape into a mud dabber wasps nest built up on a wall or eves of a house and see what kind of critter was captured.
I know of no wasp or wasp-like creature that actually eats the insides of bugs out in the open leaving carcasses......but I have friends who have been known to swoop down upon something that looks like a bacon cheeseburger only to see it wasn't and then leave....so maybe it was dead and the wasp zoomed in for the kill too late. I have found svb's dead and dry on a leaf before too...especially this late in the season....but I guess the answer is I'm one of the ones who doesn't know. But....I'd like to see you catch it in the act of catching something live.....good luck.......

9/1/2008 11:59:06 AM

sounds a lot like a cicada killer to me also

9/1/2008 9:45:32 PM