Sphex pensylvanicus
| Sphex pensylvanicus | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Sphecidae |
| Genus: | Sphex |
| Species: | S. pensylvanicus |
| Binomial name | |
|
Sphex pensylvanicus Linnaeus, 1763 |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
|
Sphex pensylvanicus is a species of digger wasp, commonly known as the great black wasp. It lives across most of North America and grows to a size of 20–35 mm (0.8–1.4 in). The larvae feed on living insects that the females paralyze and carry to the underground nest.
S. pensylvanicus is distributed across most of the Continental United States except in the north-west, in Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and also in northern Mexico. The northernmost localities in which it has been reported are Freedom, New Hampshire, Malden, Massachusetts, West Buxton, Maine, Manchester, Maine, Amherst, Massachusetts, and Woburn, Massachusetts, as well as locations in the states of New York, Vermont, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and West Central Wisconsin., and now have been found in Northern Missouri.
Sphex pensylvanicus is a large, black wasp, significantly larger than its congener Sphex ichneumoneus (the great golden digger wasp). Males are smaller than females, at only 19–28 mm (0.7–1.1 in) long, to females 25–34 mm (1.0–1.3 in). According to John Bartram, "The Sting of this Wasp is painful, but does not swell like others". As well as being larger than S. ichneumoneus, it is also darker, with smoky wings and an entirely black body, where S. ichneumoneus has yellow wings, red legs, and a partly red abdomen.
Adult females of S. pensylvanicus build an underground nest which they provision with various orthopteran insects, particularly of the genera Microcentrum, Amblycorypha and Scudderia. Prey are stung three times, once in the neck and twice in the thorax, and are paralyzed by the wasp's sting, although they can survive for weeks. The prey are then carried to the nest. While collecting their prey, the females are vulnerable to kleptoparasitism, in which birds, including the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis), steal the prey that the wasp has collected.
...
Wikipedia