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Post by scythe on Sept 20, 2011 17:44:20 GMT -8
   I live on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State. I found this large winged insect crawling around the table on the deck in my backyard. It was crawling around with its long legs and using its long feelers like an ant rather than flying. I was afraid it was some kind of giant ant queen and that it was gonna start an ant colony that could devalue my house or cost a lot to get rid of so I swatted it with my plastic fly swatter. It fell onto the deck and was frantically buzzing its wings but couldn't fly since it was injured, then it fell in between the boards. I'm worried that if it survives it's gonna be a giant scary bug with a grudge. Its body was an inch long with feelers extended another half an inch. Its wings went all the way back along its slender abdomen. It was black and amber/orange. Hope someone can tell me what it was. Thanks in advance. |
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Post by jamesd on Sept 21, 2011 1:34:34 GMT -8
Don't worry, there won't be any new colonies. It's only a wasp.
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Post by scythe on Sept 23, 2011 16:21:33 GMT -8
Oh good, thanks. Do you know what kind of wasp? When I do a Google search for "wasp" I don't see anything like it. They're all fat and yellow.
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Post by saturniidave on Sept 24, 2011 15:26:27 GMT -8
Looks like an Ichneumon wasp to me, but then Hymenoptera are not my forte.  |
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Post by scythe on Sept 26, 2011 11:13:50 GMT -8
I looked up ichneumon wasps and didn't find any matches.
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Post by jackblack on Oct 12, 2011 2:05:41 GMT -8
Its a shame to kill something just because you don` know what it is .  Next time grab a jar and catch the thing , yu can always let it go later . You are lucky it didn`t sting you. Quite often people kill snakes because they don`t know what type they are and they die because of their mistake after being bitten by it .  Let live.  |
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Post by starlightcriminal on Oct 12, 2011 4:44:06 GMT -8
I can't give you much, but it's a Sphecid wasp of some type. Sphecidae (now Sphecidae and a few other families split from the former family) are not like the rest of the Vespidae which are aggressive communal nesters (Vespula, Polistes, etc.), this is the kind that is cleaning your garden of pests and so on. It might be in the genus Sphex (digger wasps) but I'm not a wasp aficionado either, although I do like them generally as they are usually nice beneficial insects that come in a range of colors and forms. Sphecinae I think are just the thread-waisted wasps anymore, I'm not sure how the rest of the former families' taxon are classified. But it's definitely a non-social wasp, not the swarm-and-bite kind.
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Post by jackblack on Oct 18, 2011 15:18:21 GMT -8
it looks like one of the sider hunters.
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