Interesting facts about black wasps: the benefits and harm of the insect

Who are black wasps

These insects belong to the family of road wasps.
They are much larger than other species and sometimes reach 55 mm in length. Their color is blue-violet or black. They have four wings and a very strong sting. The pain of a black wasp sting can be compared to the bite of a red ant. This insect belongs to a fairly common family of road wasps. As mentioned above, in terms of body size they are much larger than many other species.

The body length of adult individuals can easily reach 55 mm. In this regard, only hornets can compete with them. Their color is not always pure black.

There are times when the body color takes on a blue-violet hue, which actually looks quite attractive.

What types of wasps are there?

Wasps are considered to be all stinging insects from the order Hymenoptera, suborder Stalk-bellied, except those that belong to bees and ants. All types of wasps are divided into two main groups:

• public;
• single.

As the name implies, the former unite in communities, the latter prefer to live separately. Hornets belong to the social category. Among the solitary ones are the sand wasp, German wasp, and Scolia.

An interesting fact is that among bees, which are considered one of the most social insects, there are also loners. This is, for example, a carpenter bee, which is popularly called a seven-stinged bee.

Paper or social wasps

Social wasps live in colonies that number from several tens to several thousand individuals. The family consists of a queen (sometimes there are several of them), whose function is the reproduction of offspring, and worker bees, which, depending on their belonging to a particular caste, perform certain duties.

The group of social wasps includes 2 subfamilies:

• vespina;
• polysteen.

On a note! This type of wasp received the name “paper” because their nests are made of a material similar to paper. With the help of strong jaws, the wasp chews wood fibers, moistening them with saliva, and then stretches the resulting viscous mass, forming new nest cells.

Vespina

This subfamily includes the most advanced insects, which are characterized by complex behavior and intricate nest designs. There is only one queen in the Vespina family. It is she who is involved in the founding of the colony, starting the construction of the nest, laying eggs and feeding the first generation of larvae.

After the first working individuals grow up, they take on all the work of building a home, as well as obtaining food for the growing larvae. The duties of the queen include only laying eggs.

Vespina

With the beginning of autumn, females appear that are capable of bearing offspring. They mate with males and hibernate to begin creating new families in the spring. The old queen, worker bees and male bees die in the fall.

Polistins

The polystin subfamily includes the largest number of species (more than 800). Some species have primitive behavior and simple nests in the form of an open honeycomb, in which from 10 to 100 individuals can live. Other polystines exhibit complex behavior and construct complex, multi-tiered nests that are home to thousands of wasps. Colonies can be founded by a single queen or several queens.

Flower wasps

Flower wasps are solitary. The insects are small, body length rarely exceeding 10 mm. The color is black with yellow stripes and spots. Insects feed on pollen and nectar and settle close to the food source. Flower wasps build nests on tree branches or on the ground. The building material is a mixture of sand and clay, held together by insect saliva. The female lays an egg in the nest, fills the cell with nectar and pollen, and seals it. The hatched larva feeds on the left reserves, then pupates and an adult wasp emerges from the cell.

Hornets

Representatives of this species are among the largest wasps, their size can reach 55 mm. In addition to their size, hornets are distinguished from other wasps by their rounded abdomen and color, which contains not only black and yellow, but also orange and brown. They mainly live in the Northern Hemisphere.

Adult insects prefer food with a high sugar content (nectar, honey, honeydew, juice and pulp of fruits), and to feed the larvae they catch insects (flies, grasshoppers, locusts, bees and other wasps). For people, a hornet sting is very painful, and the poison causes severe allergies.

Hornet

Shiny wasps

The glitter wasp is a fairly small wasp, the size of which varies from 3 to 15 mm depending on the species. Its difference is its bright color, unusual for a wasp; the body can be green, blue, purple with a metallic tint. These insects are parasites; bees, sawflies, other species of wasps, spiders, and butterflies are chosen as victims.

Road wasps

The road wasp is a fairly large insect; representatives of this family reach a size of 15–40 mm. Body color is black with yellow, orange or red spots. The difference between road wasps is their long hind legs. Each leg has a process with which the insect can loosen the soil. These insects live in burrows in the ground and rarely fly. Females lay eggs on spiders, which are first paralyzed with poison and dragged into their home. Road wasp venom is very toxic.

Road wasps

Germans

German wasps are also called velvet ants. This is due to the fact that females do not have wings, and their body is shaped like an ant and covered with soft hairs. In this species, the males are much larger than the females, which is not often the case with wasps. The body is black, the breast is red, and the color of females is much brighter.

German women never build nests. They take over the homes of other wasps, bees, and flies, where they lay eggs on the host larvae, which, after hatching, feed on their own larvae.

Scolia

Scolia are one of the largest wasps, their body length reaches 60 mm. The color is black with white, yellow, orange or red spots. Adults feed on nectar and pollen, while the larvae parasitize the larvae of the cockchafer, weevil, and rhinoceros beetle.

A Scolia bite is dangerous only for people with individual intolerance to the components of the poison; most often, the first reaction to the toxin is numbness at the site of the bite. But this symptom goes away quite quickly.

Typhia

Typhia are small wasps, the size of which varies from 5 to 12 mm. The most common color is a black body with thin yellow stripes. The peculiarity of this species is the ability to curl up into a ball in case of danger or during hunting. Insects lay eggs on the shells of some types of beetles. The hatched larvae gnaw through the chitinous shell and feed on the tissues of the beetle.

Typhia

Rider

Representatives of this family have an elongated body, which can reach a size of 3 mm to 3 cm. Ichneumon wasps differ from other wasps in that they do not have a sting. Instead, insects have an ovipositor. With its help, they lay eggs in caterpillars, beetle larvae, and spiders. The wasp positions itself above the victim and inserts the ovipositor into the body. The larvae appear inside the victim and develop by eating its tissues and organs.

Black ground wasp

The black ground wasp is the largest representative of road wasps. Just like Sandy Ammophila, which belongs to the genus of burrowing wasps, this species prefers to live in the ground, making comfortable burrows for itself. The name is due to the appearance of the insect - the wasp is black in color with a purple or blue tint.

Attention! The black ground wasp has a very toxic venom and a long, powerful sting. Its bite is very painful and can provoke a severe allergic reaction.

What does it look like

The black wasp is slightly larger in size than its usual yellow relatives and reaches 1.5-5 cm in length. They have a dark head and chest, the abdomen can be covered with spots or stripes of yellow, white, purple, which depends on the type of pompilid.

The wings are smoky and when folded are located parallel to the body. The legs of earth wasps are thin and long, equipped with ridges for digging. The head has eyes and antennae. The body is covered with thin short hairs.

Pompylids have a very powerful sting that easily penetrates the shell of insects or larvae. Black individuals move feverishly, performing zigzags; they constantly flap their wings. Such dashes are periodically replaced by short flights. Wasps feed on nectar, while the larvae are fed on the prepared body of a spider or other insect.

Features of existence

Road wasps (there is a photo in the article) reach 40 mm in size, move quickly, and constantly flutter their transparent wings.

In search of food they fly very close to the surface of the earth. They do not live in families; they prefer a solitary existence. Caring for the offspring consists of preparing a sufficient supply of food for future larvae. On the eve of laying eggs, females go out to hunt for prey, which for the most part are spiders. Then the victim, paralyzed by the sting, is dragged into a previously dug hole in order to lay eggs on it. Sometimes road wasps take over other people's burrows with already prepared prey, for which they are called kleptoparasites.

In addition to burrows dug in the soil, some females use tree trunks and strong plant shoots to lay eggs; they can sculpt clay nests themselves on stones, branches, and lower leaf plates.

Mimicry

As already mentioned, syrphids are very similar in appearance to stinging insects - wasps, bees, bumblebees. The hoverflies seem to be camouflaged as them, and their striped black and yellow coloring helps them in this. But upon closer examination, you can notice the difference:

• syrphids have much shorter antennae (for example, a wasp has antennae up to 1 cm);
• they are smaller than wasps, bees, etc. (excluding especially large species);
• they have 1 pair of wings, while the stinging ones have 2.

But even with these minor differences, nothing prevents syrphids from feeling quite at ease and boldly in nature: their external imitation (mimicry, from the English word mimicry - disguise, imitation) of dangerous stinging insects is so believable that few birds risk attacking them, especially if you have already had a sad experience of contact with a wasp. But all this is despite the absolute harmlessness and even some defenselessness of the syrphids.

Nature has endowed these flies with such a coloring, thanks to which they may not be afraid of attacks from enemies. Hence several more popular names for hoverflies: bee-eater, wasp-fly, wasp fly, etc.

Origin of the species and description

Photo: Argiope Brünnich

Argiope brunnich belongs to the arachnid arthropods, is a representative of the order of spiders, the family of orb-weaving spiders, the genus Argiope, the species of Argiope brunnich.

The spider received the name Argiope in honor of the ancient Greek nymph. About three hundred years ago, it was customary to give insects the names of ancient Greek divine creatures. Brunnich is the name of a researcher, a zoologist originally from Denmark, who wrote a large encyclopedia on insectology in 1700.

Video: Argiope Brünnich

The exact time of origin and stages of evolution of this species of arthropod is quite difficult to determine. This is due to the fact that the protective chitinous layer is destroyed quite quickly. The few remains of various parts of the body of the ancient ancestors of arachnids were most often preserved in amber or resin. It was these findings that allowed scientists and researchers to suggest that the first arachnids appeared approximately 280 - 320 million years ago.

The oldest discovery of an arthropod was discovered in the territory of the modern People's Republic of China. Judging by the body parts isolated from amber, the arthropods of that period were small in size, not exceeding five to six millimeters. Characteristically, they had a long tail, which disappeared during the process of evolution. The tail was used to make the so-called spider web. The ancient ancestors of arthropods did not know how to weave webs; they simply involuntarily secreted dense sticky threads, which they used to weave their shelters and protect cocoons.

Another characteristic feature of ancient spiders was the almost separate cephalothorax and abdomen. Zoologists suggest that the place where spiders appeared is Gondwana. With the advent of Pangea, insects began to spread almost at lightning speed throughout the entire landmass. With the onset of ice ages, insect habitats declined significantly.

Habitats

The black wasp in Russia is found in the forest, in fields, along roads, in personal plots, in gardens, and in vegetable gardens. The main criterion for choosing habitats is soil. It should be loose enough for digging, not loose, so that the minks do not collapse. Most often it is a mixture of sand, clay, and limestone.

Black wasp

On a note!

The black wasp often settles near a person’s house, but it is quite difficult to spot a single insect. In the garden, the insect brings benefits by destroying spiders, flies, and pollinating plants.

Description of appearance

Black wasp is medium or large in size – 15-50 mm. Dark head, chest, abdomen with stripes and spots of yellow, white, red, purple. The wings are dull, smoky, folded parallel to the body.

The legs are long, thin, and have digging ridges on the front legs. Hind tibia with spines and tubercles. On the small head, eyes and small antennae are clearly visible. Pompilids have a powerful sting, with which they calmly pierce the shell of large insects and their larvae. A photo of a black wasp is presented below. The color varies depending on the species.

Red-bellied road wasp (Anoplius viaticus)

Distributed in central Eurasia. The length of the body of this wasp is from 6 to 15 mm. The chest of the red-bellied black wasp is black in color, its base is covered with felt formed by light short hair. The abdomen is red on the front side, with black stripes. The female of this wasp species preys on the wolf spider . Before hunting, she digs a nest, into which she then drags the paralyzed victim and lays an egg on it.

Crossbill wasp (Batozonellus lacerticida)

The black wasp is large in size, with an average length of 10–21 mm. The body is covered with yellowish spots, the limbs are predominantly yellow-orange, the wings are dark with yellowishness, framed at the edges by a dark border. These wasps hunt, as you might guess from the name, cross spiders. The nests into which they drag the prey are made in the sand. This individual is distributed throughout almost the entire territory of extratropical Eurasia to Japan to the east and in North Africa.

Dipogon hircanum

This wasp is 0.5-1 cm long and has a completely black color. The front wings have a dark spot in the upper corner. The object of hunting for females of this species of wasps are side-walking spiders that live in trees. They create nests in the inner part of shoots or stems. They live everywhere in extratropical Eurasia, east to Japan and Kamchatka.

Description of the road wasp

Appearance

Road wasps are insects of medium or large size - from 15 to 40 mm. The color is black with spots, in most cases with red spots and less often with yellow or white spots. The wings are usually dull, smoky in color. The limbs of the pompylid are thin and long. The front legs may have digging ridges. There are no humeral tubercles on the pronotum. The wings of most road wasps are unable to fold along a longitudinal fold. The abdomen of females has 6 visible tergites, males - 7. The eyes of the insect are most often oval in shape and in rare cases - slightly kidney-shaped.

Pompilids are distinguished from other wasps of the burrowing group by the extension of the posterior edge of the pronotum to the base of the wings; the first abdominal segment is attached to the metathorax by a thin strip, without being separated from the second segment by an interception; the screeds in males are 13-segmented, in females they are 12-segmented. On the outer edge, the hind tibia are strewn with a large number of teeth and spines, especially in females. The bodies of road wasps are smooth, shiny, slightly covered with thin short hairs. Pompylids run very fast, constantly fluttering their wings, or fly low above the ground in search of food.

Insect Reproduction

Pompylids prefer to lead a solitary lifestyle. Caring for the offspring of road wasps consists of several stages. To procreate, many of them dig minks in the ground. Before laying eggs, females go hunting and with poisonous stings they paralyze insects, in particular spiders, which will serve as food for future larvae. Then, having dragged the paralyzed insects into the burrow, the pompylids lay eggs on them.

In some cases, wasps use a hole already prepared by other wasps with prey.

Such individuals are called kleptoparasites.

Females of some species of road wasps can use various plant cavities - tree trunks, strong stems of plants, grasses - as a place for laying eggs and developing offspring, in addition to burrows dug in the ground; and also create clay molded nests on tree trunks and branches, on stones, in the lower parts of trees and on the underside of leaves.

What do pompylids eat?

Pompylids feed on various insects, but mainly on spiders, which are larger in size than themselves. This is due to the fact that this type of wasp has the strongest and most developed sting,

unlike other wasps. In addition, road wasps developed their food extraction tactics very carefully and thoughtfully. They direct their sting to the point where all the nerve endings of the spiders, which are responsible for controlling the limbs and abdomen, are concentrated. Therefore, the road wasp can very easily and accurately neutralize its prey.

But before this, the wasp must plunge its stinger into the spider’s oral cavity in order to neutralize the poisonous chelicerae located in it. If a wasp wants to eat a spider living in a hole, then before grabbing it, it must drive it to the surface. In its hole, the spider feels very comfortable and confident, but when it comes out into the light, it becomes weak and defenseless, which helps the hungry wasp to easily grab and neutralize the spider. After the prey is paralyzed, the wasp leaves it for a while to find a suitable place to store it.

Habitats

Road wasps are distributed throughout the planet, but their greatest concentration is observed in tropical zones.

About 285 species of road wasps have been discovered in Russia.

Their greatest diversity was recorded in Central Asia and Transcaucasia; in the Far East, 116 species of road wasps from 25 genera were identified. Also, more than 40 species have been found in Australia and 35 species in North America.

Habitat and lifestyle

In Russia, the large black wasp is found everywhere except in regions with extremely low temperatures. The larvae, which begin their development in late spring or early summer, spend the winter in a protected cocoon.

The black and yellow wasp spends the day searching for food. Its main prey: spiders or other insects. Also, the wasp is not averse to feasting on nectar. At night, she hides on flowers, in the grass or under the bark of trees. The black color camouflages wasps at night.

How it feeds and reproduces

The main diet of black wasps consists of:

• small, often poisonous spiders;
• bedbugs;
• large flies;
• larvae of other insects.

As mentioned earlier, the breeding season occurs in the warm season - spring or summer. Unlike most representatives of Hymenoptera, the queen lays eggs in special depressions of three to four centimeters. For this, only loose soil or rotten, soft wood is used.

A nest with black wasp larvae is often found near a person. For example, this could be a garden or vegetable garden.

The larvae eat the same things as the mature representatives. Food is supplied by the female, who paralyzes her victims with poison. Only one larva lives in one hole.

Wasp - description and photographs

People are accustomed to the classic type of wasp - an insect with black and yellow stripes, but these insects can be of different colors. The body size of the wasp varies from 1.5 cm to 10 cm. The wasp has 4 membranous wings, although some species have no wings. The wasp's abdomen is fusiform or barrel-shaped and covered with hairs. On the sides of the wasp's head there are two large and complex eyes, allowing the insect to see simultaneously in different directions.

Wasp antennae

The wasp's head also contains antennae that perform several functions. In addition to the sense of smell and touch, these “antennas” recognize air vibrations and act as taste buds, and when building a nest, the wasp measures the size of the cells with its antennae. The wasp's mouthparts are designed to grind particles of plant matter, which the insect uses for food, or to build a nest.

Wasp sting and sting

Thanks to the narrow “waist” between the abdomen and chest, insects can fold their bodies almost in half to sting an opponent or prey from any convenient angle. The wasp's sting is a modified ovipositor; it is located at the end of the abdomen and it is through it that the insect secretes poison. Unlike bees, when threatened from outside, wasps use not only their stings, but also their jaws. A wasp sting is very painful and in some cases dangerous. In a person with an allergy, it can be fatal.

How dangerous is an insect and its poison?

The bright yellow color is a warning. It gives predators the information that this order of insects is poisonous and can pose a serious threat to the attacker.

The venom of one wasp does not paralyze an adult, but can cause an allergic reaction. It is indicated by the following symptoms, which appear within an hour after the poison enters the body:

• severe itching;
• skin rash;
• burning at the site of the bite.

So, doctors identify four possible outcomes after a bite:

1. A common local or non-allergic reaction. Symptoms pass quickly: from a couple of hours to one day. Least painful.
2. Severe local allergic reaction. Swelling with a radius of five centimeters lasts for 24 hours or more. Usual symptoms are accompanied by inflammation of the lymph nodes, a sharp increase in temperature, and headache.
3. General allergic reaction. In addition to the usual feeling of malaise, severe swelling, nausea, diarrhea, and shortness of breath are added. Possible abdominal pain, panic attacks and bluish discoloration of the bite site, or cyanosis.
4. General toxic or non-immunological reaction. The formation of blood clots in the vessels, sudden destruction of muscle tissue, hemolysis or disruption of the myocardium, the main muscular part of the heart, are observed.

In rare cases, a bite can cause anaphylactic shock, accompanied by a sharp decrease in blood pressure. It is especially dangerous for children, the elderly and pregnant women and can even be fatal.

Rules for first aid for a bite

Timely assistance is divided into the following stages:

1. Disinfecting hands with soap.
2. Rinse the wound itself under slightly cold water to prevent dirt from getting inside.
3. Disinfecting the bite site, for example, with hydrogen peroxide.
4. Apply a compress in the form of a piece of cloth soaked in slightly cold water.
5. Taking any antihistamine: Supradin, Zodak, Erius, taking into account contraindications and dosages specified in the instructions.

In addition to special medicinal products, lotions made from tea, onion or plantain are very effective for relieving swelling.

Interesting! Contrary to popular belief, unlike a bee, a wasp does not leave a sting after stinging.

If several wasps attack at once, or if, after being bitten by one individual, the symptoms do not go away or intensify within several days, you should immediately consult a doctor. Even after apparent complete recovery, a visit to a local clinic is recommended.

A black widow's bite is deadly

The neurotoxin found in black widow venom is 15 times stronger than rattlesnake venom. A black widow bite is accompanied by immediate sharp pain at the site of the bite, and after some time (from 15 minutes to 1 hour) other symptoms begin to appear. First of all, this is severe pain in the abdominal area, due to which a black widow bite is often confused with an open ulcer, pancreatitis or other diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. The difference is that the pain does not increase with palpation. In addition to abdominal pain, pain and cramps begin in the limbs, the patient begins to rush around the bed and scream, breathing becomes difficult and difficult. In addition, nausea, severe headaches, salivation, severe sweating, hyperreflexia, hypertension, paresthesia of the extremities, and low fever may occur. With timely medical care, after 2-3 hours the pain subsides, but does not go away completely, and within a few days it can recur with renewed vigor. Full recovery occurs only after a week. But bringing a patient to the hospital on time does not mean saving him; in children or elderly people, death often occurs due to cardiac or respiratory failure during the manifestation of the main symptoms.

The black widow spider's peak aggressiveness occurs from mid-April to October.

Adult male black widows are half the size of females and less dangerous, and the young of this species are born white or yellowish, and darken more with each molt until they reach sexual maturity and become glossy black.

How to get rid

A wasp sting is most dangerous for children and people with individual intolerance. If the insect nest is located close to your home, then it is better to get rid of it. This can be done both with the help of chemicals and using a mechanical method of control.

Chemical control

Most often, chemicals can be found in aerosol form. The concentrated insecticide does not poison the ground and is practically safe for people.

Most Popular:

• Moskitol. It is necessary to spray strictly in an open space. If you need to spray the hole, then reduce the dose by 2-3 times.
• Gett. A powerful, odorless drug. It has a long-lasting effect, as it remains active for 5-6 months after spraying.

Physical methods

The nest should be removed from the property wearing a protective suit or after pre-treating the area with chemicals. If the nest is located in the ground, then you can dig up the area and pour boiling water over it.

When it is necessary to lure out adults, sweet traps are used. They are made from a plastic bottle and compote or fruit juice. The bottle is cut in half and the upper part is placed neck down into the lower part, where the sweet liquid is poured.

Folk remedies

The Russian people have come up with many tricks to catch and destroy any wasps. The most famous, perhaps, are simple traps.

Bait trap

To create it you will need a large plastic bottle and 200 ml of sweet, sour compote or at least fruit juice.

1. Cut the bottle along the bend in the middle.
2. Pour the prepared solution into the bottom of the bottle, turn the top upside down and place it in the top.

Thus, it serves as a kind of limiter, allowing the wasp to fly in without the ability to slip out.

Methods of disposal

Getting rid of black wasps is possible using chemicals and folk remedies. They differ from each other in speed of action, cost, and effectiveness.

Chemicals

Most often, insecticides are used to destroy wasp nests, i.e. preparations for getting rid of insects. These, for example, include strong and effective products called Empire-20, Gett and Moskitol.

Manufacturers promise three to six quiet months after use. After this period, preventive measures must be taken.

The following operating methods exist:

• spraying with chemicals using a spray bottle;
• introducing insecticides into the soil with burrows;
• pollination of plants with chemicals;
• use of poison baits.

Almost all chemicals begin to take full effect within a week after use.

Folk remedies

Man has come up with many cheap ways to get rid of black wasps using improvised means. Among the most popular:

1. A bait trap made from a plastic bottle, cut along the bend in the middle. Filled with sour sweet juice from below, it will attract wasps inside, and the limiter in the form of an upturned throat will not allow them to fly out. The same can be done with glass jars and with centimeter-sized cross-shaped holes in the lid.
2. Direct destruction of nests. After discovering the habitat of the main part of the wasps, there is an option to drive them out of the area forever. If the nest is in the ground, scalding with a large amount of boiling water will help. If black wasps live in tree hollows, the easiest way to smoke them out is by setting fire to the material, which will produce acrid smoke. For example, plastic, rubber or plant fibers are suitable.

Thus, the black wasp with yellow stripes is a danger to humans. Fortunately, you can quickly get rid of it using special means or improvised methods.

Pompilid species

Road or ground wasps live all over the globe, differ in size and color, but lead an identical lifestyle.

Pompilid species

• Dipogon is average. Latin name Dipogon hircanum. Completely black. Body size is about 1 cm. Wings with small dark spots. They hunt sidewalk spiders. They live in trees, building burrows inside branches, shoots, and hollows. They are representatives of the fauna of Japan, Eurasia, and Kamchatka.
• Crucifix wasp. In Latin Batozonellus lacerticida. A large black wasp with yellow stripes on its belly and orange wings. The limbs are black and red. Body size up to 21 mm. Cross spiders become victims. Nests are formed in the soil. They live in Eurasia, Japan, and North America.
• Red-bellied wasp (Anoplius viaticus). The insect reaches a size of 15 mm. The body is black, the abdomen is red. Hunts a wolf spider. Builds nests in the ground. The species is distributed in Eurasia.
• Black and white wasp. In Latin it is called Monobia quadridens. The body is black with white stripes and spots. The size of females is about 18 mm. The white wasp builds nests in various cavities and abandoned hives of tree bees. The victims are butterfly larvae.

Insects benefit agriculture by destroying a huge number of pests. However, an accidental collision between a person and a predator can result in a bite.

Family Crabronidae, or sand wasps (Crabronidae)

The sizes are usually small or medium, 5-15 mm (maximum up to 20 mm). In temperate latitudes you can often find miniature (about 10 mm) slender dark wasps. It is quite difficult to determine their species by eye. In general, they are similar to dark bees, but are less pubescent. There are many of these wasps, but they rarely attract attention.

The sand wasp family is distinguished by enormous species diversity and occupies a leading position in the number of species among all sphecoid wasps. In total, there are about 8,000 species in this family, living mainly in the tropics; in Europe there are several hundred species.

The body length is usually only a few millimeters. About 10 species were known on the territory of the USSR. Spilomen hunt thrips, one of the smallest winged insects. They nest in the passages of xylophages in dead wood, in the core of bush branches.

A common species, which in some sources is called tiny spilomena, but, based on the Latin name, it should be called cave spilomena, or burrow. These wasps nest in straws. Having delivered a sufficient number of paralyzed thrips to the nest, the female lays an egg and seals the cell, and then begins to again store prey in the same straw. This creates a series of linearly arranged cells.

Read: Family sawflies (Cimbicidae)

Slender, usually black wasps, not very large in size (often about 10 mm). At least 35 species were found on the territory of the USSR. They hunt juvenile, less often adult, spiders. All Palearctic species nest, like spylomen, in ready-made cavities - hollow stems, in the passages of xylophagous beetles, in galls, in narrow tunnels found in limestone, as well as in the nests of solitary bees and wasps.

Among the crabronids, there are many medium-sized species, distinguished by the black-and-yellow coloration characteristic of wasps and a disproportionately large head; it is not for nothing that representatives of the genus Crabro are called big-headed wasps. Wasps with these traits are found in different subfamilies. And if outwardly they are similar to a non-specialist, then in biology they can differ significantly.

Medium or large bright wasps with a contrasting black and yellow, sometimes black and white pattern. Like spilomenes and trypoxylons, they usually nest in ready-made cavities and passages, but of a larger size (some subtropical species - in the ground). A nest can have up to 40 cells. They most often hunt flies, but some of them also attack representatives of other orders of insects.

Read: Family of true psyllids (Psyllidae)

Outwardly, they are partly similar to species of the genus Ectemnius (except perhaps with a thinner “waist”), but they belong to a different subfamily and differ in nesting characteristics.

There are only two species found in the Palearctic. These wasps dig holes in the ground, often deep (up to 50 cm), in which they build several (from 1 to 15) cells. They hunt various flies.

Of the medium-sized black-and-yellow wasps, species of the genus Gorytes can also be mentioned. Although these wasps are rare, they are interesting as an example of sphecoid wasps that prey on small cycads from several families. About 20 species of gorites are found in Europe. They all lead a lifestyle typical of burrowing wasps. The female digs a hole, builds a nest with several cells and fills them with small leafhoppers. The nest has up to 4 cells, into each of which the female brings several (up to 19) leafhoppers.

Philanthus are also called bee wolves, since they actually hunt bees, less often other hymenoptera. These are fairly slender, medium-sized black-and-yellow and black-and-white wasps. They nest in the ground, their passages go more than 50 cm deep. 13 species are found on the territory of the former USSR.

Read: Speckled wing family (Tephritidae)

You might be interested in:

• Family true bees (Apidae)
• Redwing beetles (Lycidae)
• Tubeworm beetles (Attelabidae)
• Family true caddisflies (Phryganeidae)
• Weevils (Curculionidae)
• Blueberry family (Lycaenidae)

Hymenoptera

Benefit or harm

Human economic activities benefit greatly from wasps, because insects pollinate plants. In addition, they take part in the food chain, influencing the prosperity of various species of animals and plants. These predators eat many agricultural pests, which include caterpillars.

Despite the fact that the glitter sting contains a very small amount of a poisonous substance that does not cause any harm to humans, for some people such a bite can be quite dangerous, causing a severe allergic reaction and the formation of swelling.

In case of a bite, it is necessary to give one injection of diphenhydramine so that the wasp venom is absorbed in a short period of time. In addition, the victim needs rest, constant warming of all extremities, as well as plenty of hot drinks. In this situation, you should definitely consult a doctor.

Who eats wasps?

Despite the fact that most wasp species are aggressively colored predators, armed with a poisonous sting, and they have enemies. Among them:

• hornets (the closest relatives of some species turn out to be the worst enemies);
• praying mantises;
• fantail beetles (parasitic on larvae);
• ants (they destroy the homes of wasps, destroy weak and sick insects);
• birds (more than 100 species prey on wasps, the most famous are honey beetles);
• mammals (bears, badgers, weasels, rats, skunks, mice);
• lizards;
• frogs, toads.

Wasps are most vulnerable in the fall, when air temperatures drop and insects become less active.

Preventive actions

Black wasps have a sweet tooth. They love floral aromas and fruits. To prevent them from approaching your home, you should not plant flower beds under the windows of the house. It is also unacceptable to throw away spoiled fruit to rot in the garden.

When harvesting, you should carefully inspect each fruit so as not to bring insects into the house . To prevent bites, women are not recommended to use bright perfumes that can attract wasps during the summer months.

Black wasps rarely attack without reason, usually it becomes their self-defense when a person threatens their life. On the contrary, they help people fight pests in the form of spiders, bedbugs, and flies.

Therefore, there is no need to get rid of them except in cases of individual intolerance to poison. In this situation, in order for the earthen insect to stay away from the home, the number of flower plantings near the house should be limited and the missing products should not be stored for rotting.

Kambas black wasp killing poisonous spiders

By the time the desert burns out from the summer heat, poisonous spiders - karakurts - grow up. Females change their bright, flowery attire of youth and become velvety black.

The home - random cobwebs stretched between the blades of grass above the surface of the earth - is left to the mercy of fate, and spiders, driven by the heat, move to all kinds of shady shelters: in rodent holes, in the bases of bushes and grasses, under overhanging clods of earth.

Here, in the darkness, a spherical lair is woven, from which strong, elastic and shiny cobweb threads stretch in all directions. In the twilight of the den, the spider, hidden from the sun, sits on alert all the time, waiting for prey to appear. And all around the desert rings with the singing of many fillies and sparkles with the colored wings of tireless singers.

A careless jump and the filly falls onto the cobweb threads of a hidden predator. Swinging on them like on a swing, the filly is about to jump back out. But at this time a black ball hastily rolls out of the dark lair and rushes towards its prey.

A lightning-fast throw - and a drop of glassy-transparent sticky liquid splashes out from the end of the spider's abdomen. She sticks around the filly's legs.

How difficult it is to free yourself from unexpected obstacles! The filly is trying to clean off a sticky lump. Another second - and you can escape from captivity. But the moments of salvation are lost. A black spider is already curling and spinning around the filly, throwing out more and more loops of cobweb threads. Then, carefully breaking the threads on one side and pulling them up on the other, he ensures that the filly soon hangs in the air and, deprived of support, trembles helplessly with her body.

A greedy and cowardly spider carefully approaches the filly and quietly plunges its poisonous hooks into the tip of her leg. Now the prey is defeated and after a few minutes it beats in its death throes. The antennae moved for the last time and the legs stretched out. A voracious spider drags its prey into a dark lair to enjoy its food there in silence.

Karakurt is insatiable. The dried shells of the corpses of fillies, darkling beetles, desert lumberjacks and many other insects are hung along the walls of his lair, lying on the ground under the nets, revealing the home of the black robber.

The karakurt has many enemies, and they prevent it from multiplying greatly. Only sometimes, when for some reason the activity of our friends weakens and living conditions are favorable for the karakurt, the poisonous spider appears in large numbers, and then people and domestic animals suffer from its bites. However, the dominance of the karakurts does not last long: soon their enemies begin to intensively exterminate the spiders.

Even in ancient times, the inhabitants of Central Asia were well aware of the black wasp, which destroyed the karakurt. They called this wasp “kambas”. Every resident is sure that the black wasp destroys the karakurt spider, which is terrible for the entire population of the steppes.”

This wasp was also known in Italy, where karakurt is also common, and people called it “the fly of St. John.”

How to see a Kambas, get acquainted with his appearance, learn his way of life. After all, essentially nothing is known about him, and no one has yet described him properly.

Days and weeks pass. Many kilometers have been traveled under the scorching sun, many karakurt lairs have been reviewed. But persistent searches are fruitless. For some reason, the black wasp has become rare; the local population has forgotten about its former glory and does not even remember the word “kambas”.

The closest relatives of the Kambasa are often found around - black pompilla wasps, graceful, slender, blue-black, with nervously vibrating antennae. But they are indifferent to karakurt and do not pay any attention to it. And the kambas is here somewhere. And it is not so rare to see lairs in which there are no karakurts, dragged away by a brave hunter. The failures of the search are upsetting, but the decision is firm: we must search again and again...

Chance often comes to the aid of the researcher, and then the secret is immediately revealed. But this is not always the case, and often you have to search for a long time and have difficulty deciphering what you need, based on the smallest features. The same thing happened with kambas. During the first year of searching, he remained elusive.

A new spring has come and resounded with the songs of the desert larks. And when everything burned out and the karakurts moved to new homes, somehow unexpectedly we came across a kambas: small, completely black, he sat at the entrance to the karakurt’s lair and energetically cleaned his shiny black wings with his feet.

He attended to the toilet so carefully, as if he had just finished some hard work. It was impossible to get close to the wasp with a net, and as soon as the tweezers approached it, it fluttered up, flashed as a black dot against the light background of the desert and disappeared.

Karakurt was not in the lair, and the freshly woven cocoon hung without an owner. There could be no doubt: the black wasp was a Kambas that destroyed the karakurt. After all, a spider never leaves its home.

Carefully, layer by layer, the soil is raked. Near the place where the black wasp was sitting, the black back of a karakurt appeared among the lumps of earth. The spider is motionless. As soon as his mouth appendages quiver. He is paralyzed by a wasp. A small larva is attached to the spider's abdomen.

Hurry up and place your find in a jar of soil! The larva immediately, before our eyes, molts and, as if slipping out of its old shell, begins to plunge into the body of the spider. Bon Voyage!

The larva will feed in the body of the spider, pupate by the end of summer, overwinter, and the wasp will fly out of it exactly by the time the adult karakurts appear. Now you can’t miss a single lair from which the karakurts have disappeared. Another search, and soon a dozen karakurt paralyzed by Kambas rest in a jar of soil.

But the matter is not finished. We must watch the hunting of this wonderful predator. Should I follow this little black wasp now? After all, she looks so much like a kambasa!

The wasp is all in motion. She crawls into all sorts of cracks and holes. Sometimes she flies up, and then, straining your eyesight, you have to run as fast as you can after her. The wasp is clearly looking for someone. And the search for it is short-lived: the net of poisonous spiders stretches almost every five to ten meters. The wasp carefully and deftly climbs onto the net. Large bristles on the legs, spaced at right angles, help it run freely along the web threads.

The spider hardly reacts to the alien. He doesn’t see it, and the slightest shaking of the web in no way resembles the desperate movements of prey trying to free itself from the snares of its prey. Having climbed into the lair just above the spider, the wasp freezes. At this moment, a careless throw of spider fluid is enough and the life of a brave hunter will be ruined. But the spider is calm. Can he see the wasp now? In the darkness of the den, the black wasp is not visible.

Several minutes pass. The wasp is still motionless. She seems to be waiting for the right moment, studying and trying on the huge carcass of the predator, lazily hanging back down on several cobwebs stretched out in the lair. The attack comes suddenly.

With lightning speed, the wasp rushes straight to the deadly poisonous hooks and, without allowing the spider to come to its senses, plunges a long, shiny sting into its mouth. Two or three more blows to the same place, hitting the spider’s brain, and the brave huntress, jumping to the side, swings on the nets, shaking off her paws.

The body of the karakurt shudders convulsively, and a small grayish-white drop of arachnoid liquid appears at the end of the abdomen: the spider did not have time to resort to its weapon. A large drop of brownish-yellow blood appears from the mouth and spreads across the head and chest; the outstretched legs of the spider sluggishly cling to the body, the karakurt hangs lifelessly on the web.

The wasp probes the spider with its antennae, then disappears. In the nearest patch of loose earth, in a shady depression, she hastily makes a small hole. Lumps of earth fly in all directions, thrown away by the feet of the wasp. Interrupting her work, she runs up to the prey, as if wanting to make sure of its safety. She drags the spider into the prepared hole, amazing not only with her dexterity, but also with her considerable strength. Then the wasp attaches the immediately born larva to the spider’s body, fills the hole and begins to clean its shiny black outfit.

Now don't miss the wasp! But, deftly dodging, she flies away...

The search for Kambas continues again. You need to catch at least one wasp to find out its exact species name. Perhaps it is still unknown to science. At times I want to give up the long and tedious search. After all, Kambas larvae grow in a jar with paralyzed karakurts. But it is difficult to raise insects in artificial conditions and luck is not always the case.

The search continues. And here again is the careful pursuit of the wasp. She flies up to the karakurt's lair. It's time to catch it: there is no doubt, it's a Kambas. But I really want to watch her hunt again!

Having run around the karakurt's home from all sides, the wasp stops under the nets and suddenly begins to quickly and quickly beat the spider's web threads with its antennae. A few seconds pass. A black spider appears at the entrance of the lair. He reluctantly moves his long legs, moving them through the web threads and trying to determine where the shaking came from and who was caught in the snare.

It’s as if the direction of production has been guessed. Now he will attack. But what happened to karakurt? Where did his swiftness and tenacity in battle go? Somehow hesitantly, finely mincing with his feet and shuddering, the fat spider slowly approaches the wasp. There are a few centimeters left... Now the spider will wake up and spray spider fluid. But the karakurt trembles cowardly...

Then everything happens very quickly and almost imperceptibly.

Kambas takes off, flies over the spider and delivers his lightning-fast “dagger” strike. The spider is defeated. He hangs like a lifeless and limp sack on the nets.

Deftly moving the web threads with its feet, the black wasp hurries down to choose a place to bury its prey.

Two Kambas - two different ways of hunting! Perhaps there are several species of wasps that destroy karakurts, similar to each other, and each of them has its own hunting techniques? After all, each species of wasp uses strictly defined hunting methods. But it is no longer possible to meet Kambas, and these questions remain unanswered. The cambas larvae in the jar with the paralyzed spiders also died - because of the excess moisture, everything there had sprouted with fungi.

Meaning for a person.

Blue mud wasps often make their nests in buildings and therefore cause some nuisance with their presence. But their harmless habits and the use of spiders for breeding, as a rule, compensate for their habitation in buildings. Therefore, you should not destroy blue mud wasps if they have settled in your home; they are useful and feed their offspring with spiders, which can be poisonous. If a blue mud wasp has flown into your home, try carefully covering it with a jar and then releasing it outside. This type of wasp controls the number of karakurt spiders, which are especially dangerous.

What to do if you are stung by a road wasp?

If, nevertheless, you did not please the road wasp in some way (maybe it did not like your perfume or behavior), and it stung you, try to do the following: take a painkiller and an antihistamine. The pain from the bite is very severe and can last up to 72 hours. People with a low pain threshold may even develop a state of shock. In addition, the poison that the wasp injects into its victim causes severe tissue swelling and allergic reactions. It is especially dangerous when the bite occurs in the neck or head area. Therefore, after a bite you should immediately consult a doctor.

We in no way want to scare anyone with our article. The likelihood of encountering this Maya bee in Thailand is quite low. In any corner of our planet you can always find some unpleasant creature. We just want to convey to readers the idea that when going on a trip to Thailand, it is worth remembering that this is a country with tropical nature, which is as beautiful as it is harsh with those who neglect it.