Solitary Wasps

Some wasp are social—they build communal nests, the ones presented on this page are solitary. Each adult female is fertile and provides food for her own offspring. Eight shown below are:

Black and yellow mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium),
Sand wasp (Bembix Americana),
Cuckoo wasp (Chrysididae sp.),
Sphecid apoid wasp
Grass–carrying wasp (Isodontia mexicana)?
digger wasp ((Ectemnius sp.)?
common spiny digger wasp (Oxybelus uniglumis)
Unidentified small black wasp

This site also has a page about local social wasps.

This tiny fellow resting on my toe is a sphecid apoid wasp (subfamily Philanthinae; Genus Cerceris? or Eucerceris?). It is solitary and predatory. Adult females nest in the ground. ID by RWT

This cuckoo wasp (Chrysis angolensis) is a solitary wasp which lays its eggs in a host’s nest. Its larvae then consume the host’s egg or larva, and then it consumes the host’s provisions. A favoured victim is the black and yellow mud dauber.

The black and yellow mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) builds mud nests in sheltered locations. The mud dauber provisions its nests with the spiders it has stung. ID by RAC

A black and white mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) is caught in flight.

An unknown small black wasp.

A digger wasp (Ectemnius sp.)?

A grass–carrying wasp (Isodontia mexicana ?) has a thread waist. Females carry grass to line a nest. Then she hunts for, paralyses, and carries a cricket to the nest. Eggs are laid and emerging larvae feed on the living, but immobile crickets.

A sand wasp has paralyzed a robber fly and is dragging it back to its nest in the sand where it will lay an egg on it.

A sand wasp is dragging its victim down into a nest in the sand.

The sand wasp (Bembix Americana) sips nectar, but soon will hunt prey to provision its nest with food for its developing larva.

This little aqua–eyed wasp, found though much of the Northern Hemisphere, is a common spiny digger wasp (Oxybelus uniglumis). This is male; the female captures flies, drags them impaled on its stinger, buries them in the sand and plants an egg on them. ID by Matthias Buck