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A
yellow and black mud dauber
wasp hunting in my garden for caterpillars with which to stock its
larval cells. This is one of the more common thread-waisted wasps
in this area.
This
view gives a different
perspective of the anatomy of the wasp. Note the long thin
"waist" between the thorax and the abdomen.
The
mud dauber gets its name from
the
fact that it builds its "nest", larval cells from mud. Here we
see a
wasp putting the outer layer of mud over two cells, which are side by
side on the wall.
Usually
the mud dauber builds two
to
six cells. Here we see an unusual nest of twelve cells. On
the
lowest cell you can see the plug which closed it until the larva
emerged as an adult wasp.
[Taxonomy :
Classification ]
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