Sphecius speciosus (Eastern Cicada Killer)
On the sandy shore of Pinchot Lake, where we camped last night, there was a sign warning campers that there were cicada killer wasps laying their eggs. As you may have figured out by now, I’m not particularly scared of wasps and I thought I’d see how close I could get for a picture. As you can see, I did reasonably well. This wasp is a good 3 to 4 cm long and pretty formidable looking but they didn’t bother me as I walked among them, being careful not to step on their burrows, of course.
As their name implies, they sting and paralyze cicadas, bury them in the sand, and lay an eggs on the last cicada. When the egg hatches, the larva has a nice source of food.