Potter wasp
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| iPotter wasps | ||||||||||||||||
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 Ancistrocerus sp.
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many (>200) |
Potter wasps (or mason wasps) also known as Dirt daubers are cosmopolitan wasps that are typically treated as a subfamily of Vespidae, but have in the past sometimes been recognized as a separate family, Eumenidae. They are the most diverse subfamily of vespids, with over 200 genera, and contain the vast majority of species in the family; all known eumenine species are solitary predators. Most species are black or brown, and commonly marked with strikingly contrasting patterns of yellow, white, orange, or red (or combinations thereof). Like most vespids, their wings are folded longitudinally at rest.
Potter wasps are named for the nests they construct out of mud and water, and these can have one to multiple individual cells. When a cell is completed, the adult wasp typically collects beetle larvae, spiders or caterpillars and, paralyzing them, places them in the cell to serve as food for a single wasp larva. In a few species, the adult wasp lays a single egg in the opening of the cell, suspended from a thread of dried fluid. When the wasp larva hatches, it drops and immediately feeds upon the larvae, and later breaks out of the nest to begin its adult life. Adult potter wasps feed on plant nectar. It is believed that Native Americans based their pottery designs upon the form of local potter wasp nests. [von Frisch, 1974]
 Eumenes pomiformis |
 A potter wasp nest on a brick wall in coastal South Carolina |
 Potter wasp building nest |
