Predatory Wasps - Superfamily VESPOIDEA and SPHECOIDEA
This page contains pictures and information about Predatory Wasps that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Predatory Wasps feed on on nectar although their larvae are carnivorous.
Wasps have a small head, with medium sized eyes and medium length antennae. The body is slender, with a narrow waist. They have two pairs of brown-tinted wings, with the forewings larger. The abdomen has some yellow bands on black. Adult wasps generally feed on nectar so they pollinate flowers as well. The ovipositors in most wasps are modified into stingers. They will sting if disturbed.
Wasp larvae are carnivorous. They feed on other insects and spiders. The adult female provide food for them by capturing prey or by laying the egg on or near the food source. Female wasps spend most of their time in finding food and making nest for their young.
Most wasp species are solitary, but some of them, such as the paper wasps, form colonies.
Although we call this two Superfamilies, VESPOIDEA and SPHECOIDEA, as Predatory Wasps, some of them are parasitic. Ants are in Superfamily VESPOIDEA.
- Nesting Behaviour of Predatory Wasps VESPOIDEA and SPHECOIDEA
Superfamily VESPOIDEA
FAMILY
POMPILIDAE - Spider Wasps- Most member in this family are large wasps. They are solitary insect. Most of them are orange and black, the very strong warning colour. They hunt for spider as prey, which they grasp and sting.
Family
MUTILLIDAE - Velvet Ants- Wasps in this family are usually heavily sclerotised and with metallic colours. Males are winged and look very different with female. Females are wingless and ant-like, but can be distinguished by their curled antenna and hairy body. Larvae parasite on other wasp, bee or ant nest.
FAMILY TIPHIIDAE - Flower Wasps- Species in this family are parasitic wasps which there larvae parasite on soil insects such as burrowing beetles larvae and mole crickets. The female Flower Wasps has to burrow through the soil to find the host and lay an egg on it. The female legs are modified for digging and her wings are lost.
FAMILY SCOLIIDAE - Flower Wasps- Most member in this family are large wasps. They are solitary insect. The larvae are ectoparasitoids of the grubs of beetles. The females burrow extensively in the soil to locate host grubs. They seems to often utilize the burrows made by the grubs themselves. The females then paralyze the grub and lay eggs on it.
FAMILY VESPIDAE - Paper Wasps, Potter
Wasps- Paper Wasps make their nests by chewing decayed wood mixing with their saliva. A number of hexagonal shape cup cell grouped together to form a comb. An egg is lay in each cell. The larvae develops and pupate inside the cell, emerges and become an adult.
FAMILY FORMICIDAE
- Ants- All ants are in family Formicidae and all of them have waist. Their waist is composed of one or two knobs which are the first one or two segment of their abdomen. Their antennae have a distinct elbow. Ants live in colonies made up of several castes. They included the winged male, winged female and wingless workers.
Superfamily SPHECOIDEA
FAMILY SPHECIDAE and CRABRONIDAE - Mud-Dauber, Sand Wasps- Species in this family are solitary hunting wasps. Female wasp make nest in soil or build mud cells for her young. She paralyses host arthropod, usually caterpillars or spiders, by her sting. The sting is a modified ovipositor which injects venom paralyses but not kill the host.
- There are some other wasps that we cannot identify and listed in this page.
- Reference:
- 1. Insects of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 989.
- 2. Insects of Australia and New Zealand - R. J. Tillyard, Angus & Robertson, Ltd, Sydney, 1926, p297.
- 3. Identification of European Wasp -Pests & Diseases, SARDI, South Australia.
- 4. What wasp is that? - An interactive identification guide to the Australasian families of Hymenoptera, 2007.
