Insect Picture of the Day

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The Labor Day trip to Moab produced dozens of great pictures for this site, but this yellow mud dauber wasp apparently didn’t get the memo that I would be coming by and would appreciate it if she would stop for a moment to pose for photos. This was as close as I could get to her for a picture.

Mud daubers make a cocoon out of mud for their larvae; if you have a garage in mud dauber country you might well have one or two of these mud tubes up high on your rafters. They’re left open at one end so the emerging wasp can get out. Although their size can make them appear intimidating, they’re actually quite shy and nonaggressive. Mud daubers are solitary wasps; they do not build hives or live in social groups like bees and hornets. As a result, they don’t have the aggressive nest-defense instinct. Because they’re aggressive predators, however, mud daubers are extremely beneficial wasps to have around.

This wasp was circling a stand of sunflowers with about six other wasps, all of different species, and it was pretty clear from their flight pattern that they were all sure there was one last spider in there somewhere. Solitary wasps don’t even stick around to tend their larvae after they lay their eggs in their nests; they will generally kill or paralyze a prey insect or spider and then leave it behind for the emerging larvae when they abandon the nest.