The male wasps' aggressive behavior is similar to that of another robust insect of the area, the male carpenter bee. Not unusually, two or three male wasps are seen locked together in apparent midair combat, the aggregate adopting an erratic flight path until one of the wasps breaks away. The males are more often seen in groups, vigorously challenging one another for position on the breeding aggregation from which they emerged, and generally investigate anything that moves or flies near them. Wasp burrows between the gaps in a concrete driveway. The large females are commonly seen skimming around lawns seeking good sites to dig burrows and searching for cicadas in trees and taller shrubs. They are present in a given area for 60 to 75 days, usually until mid-September. Īdults emerge in summer, typically beginning around late June or early July and die off in September or October. Adults feed on flower nectar and other plant sap exudates. Cicada killer females use their stings to paralyze their prey (cicadas) rather than to defend their nests unlike most social wasps and bees, they do not attempt to sting unless handled roughly. Solitary wasps like the eastern cicada killer are very different in their behavior from the social wasps such as hornets, yellowjackets, or paper wasps. speciosus digging a burrow next to a driveway Eastern cicada-killer wasp holding a paralyzed cicada at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge speciosus from Central GA (scale bar: 1 cm) Life cycle and habits A female S. The males are smaller than the females because they are not given as much larval food since females must carry the cicadas they have killed to a burrow for nesting, they benefit from being larger, and are given more food as larvae. European hornets ( Vespa crabro) are often mistaken for eastern cicada killers, though at about 3.5 cm (1.4 in) long, they are smaller than the largest cicada killers. The females are somewhat larger than the males, and both are among the largest wasps seen in the Eastern United States, their unusual size giving them a uniquely fearsome appearance. Coloration superficially resembles that of some yellowjacket and hornet species. Description Five female eastern cicada killers, Sphecius speciosusĪdult eastern cicada wasps are large, 1.5 to 5.0 cm (0.6 to 2.0 in) long, robust wasps with hairy, reddish, and black areas on their thoraces (middle parts), and black to reddish brown abdominal (rear) segments that are marked with light yellow stripes. The most recent review of this species' biology is found in the posthumously published comprehensive study by noted entomologist Howard Ensign Evans. Cicada killers exert a measure of natural control on cicada populations, and as such, they may directly benefit the deciduous trees upon which the cicadas feed. They are so named because they hunt cicadas and provision their nests with them. and southwards into Mexico and Central America. This species can be found in the Eastern and Midwest U.S. Sometimes, they are called sand hornets, although they are not hornets, which belong to the family Vespidae. The name may be applied to any species of crabronid that preys on cicadas, though in North America, it is typically applied to this species, also referred to as the eastern cicada killer in order to further differentiate it from the multiple other examples of related wasp species. Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large, solitary digger wasp species in the family Crabronidae.
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