Wasp Identity SOLVED...

So I hadn't even LOOKED UP that wasp that we found last week. Some homeschool mom I am. But I've been inventorying all my books for the last couple of weeks and came across my National Audubon Society Field Guide Stash (they are AWESOME for any of you interested in that sort of thing). So I started looking through the wasp section and sure enough...there it was orangey golden legs, golden body with the lower half of the abdomen a shiny black...Great Golden Digger Wasp.

Here is a MUCH better shot than I got of it...

Found here


Found here

From 09.2008.Pics

And here is the one that I took...I wish that I'd taken some while it was in the jar so you could see the markings...but now you can compare side by side, maybe I'll get a chance to crop and enlarge this a little later, but for now...

From 09.2008.Pics

The weird thing is that these are usually farther north than Texas...many of them on the upper east coast. I know I'd never seen one and I'm one who would look. We've had a cicada killer wasp every single summer EXCEPT this summer. Sadly our new planters must have destroyed the nest and they haven't come back...those are fun to watch.

Found this picture of a cicada killer wasp here

From 09.2008.Pics

Now that I know what it is, I'm sad that I was so quick to get rid of it...sounds like they are the northern version of the cicada killer in their habits...but this one was MUCH smaller than the cicada killers we've had in the past...one year we had one that was EASILY over 2 inches long...the Great Golden Digger was maybe an inch...still big, but the big cicada killer looked like it could carry off the children.

So there you go, your nature study moment...

See you around...