Cicada Wasp, Pac-Mannish Deco

In mId -August, spotted couple of cicada-pertinent items--a cicada wasp and cicada wing, one day apart. Decided to save the cicada wasp topic till now. (The previous article and video is about the wing—"Cicada Wing Curiosity Piquer".

As is often, the winged bug caught our eyes during a morning walk. Initially, thought might be a hornet. Took video and stills, one with a measuring tape body. Later, I estimated the insect at ~ 2”, using some kludgy composite means of measuring items. Easiest way to estimate the length would have been simply pull some of the measuring tape out, lock it, place the tab near one end the insect, and take a pic.

Anyway, I poked around on the web to narrow down the stinger suspect. Found an excellent Cicada Wasp Flickr image. Now armed with caption info, particularly "Cicada Killer Wasp (Crabroninae, Sphecius specimen)", I no longer, uh, flew blind trying to determine the insect.

"Crabronidae, the crabronid wasps, including the mud daubers and sand wasps" section of "Insect Identification Key" and "Genus Specius" section of BugGuide.net greatly helped my bug determination. BugGuide's Taxonomy tab shows the four species convallis (Pacific), grandis (Western), hogardii (Caribbean), and speciosus (Eastern).

In looking at the BugGuide's Sphecius genus images, the yellow markings of the images I have seem to best indicate the Eastern species. Look at a Pac-Man image, then look at killer wasp images I offer up. Do you also see Pac-Mannish faces? Contrast with markings of other species' examples—less Pac-Mannish, imho. (View my video for circling-around peering.)

I recalled I had blogged about a cicada wasp with cicada. Revisted "Wasp and Cicada Together". The pic of a neighbor and dead cicada wasp greatly resembles the Cicada Wasp Flickr image.

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Wasp and Cicada Together

Earlier this month, a wasp and cicada caught our eyes. I might have whipped out my measuring stick and laid it near the duo, but decided to not disturb the wasp. As it turns out, several resources claim that the wasp is likely busy and not interested in a nearby human. From Cicada Mania's "10 Facts about Cicada Killer Wasps"

They are so focused on cicadas or other Cicada Killer Wasps, that they could care less about you. Sure, if you step on one, squeeze one in your hand, or otherwise harass the insect, it might sting you. Unlike other wasps, it will not go out of its way to harm you. Play it safe, do not go near these wasps, …

The last few months have been interesting for encountering cicadas and related items—exuviae (discarded exoskeleton), cicada wasp (humongous insect), and a molting cicada visitor on my doorstep—all separate events. This incident was different—both wasp and cicada in the same scene. In looking closer at the pictures and doing Google lookups, a real oddity was the size of the pictured wasp compared to the cicada. Resources such as Cicada Mania and BugGuide.Net describe the wasps as large.

• From Cicada Mania's "10 Facts about Cicada Killer Wasps"
  "If you haven’t seen a Cicada Killer Wasp, they are large black and pale yellow wasps, and are often found carrying a cicada".
• From BugGuide.Net's "Species Sphecius speciosus - Eastern Cicada Killer"
  "30-40 mm, one of the largest North American wasps … A very large wasp with distinctive pattern and behavior."
• From Texas A&M's Agrilife site for "The Texas-sized cicada killer"
  "Cicada killer wasps are easy to spot due to their large size; they are typically 1-1/2 to two inches in length."

If you compare the pictures with numerous online images or videos of wasps flying with their prey, my wasp is an absolute peewee. As I didn't spend much time with the duo, and didn't shoot a video, I'm inferring a story. The cicada's back faces the sky. For the wasp to use the cicada as food source for its larva, it must be able to insert the egg into the cicada. In the three pix, the wasp looks waaaay too small to be able to turn the cicada onto its back.

Walking in the same area the next day, did not see either insect. Dang! Missed opportunity.

While researching sites and videos to better identify the wasp and cicada. I noted a couple of coincidences:

• A suspected cicada wasp that I'd taken a picture of the previous month resembles large cicada wasps in several images and videos, particularly "Cicada Killer Wasp (Craboninae, Sphecius speciosus)".
  
  
• The cicada's back markings for the September 13 strongly resembles the markings for the cicada in my article "Cicada Wasp N Cicada a Month Apart".
  
  

Additional video resources show wasps with cicadas. Those wasps are maybe half the size of the cicadas (unlike peewee wasp), but strong enough to haul their prey. Some of the videos also include narration about the wasps' actions on the hapless cicadas.

• "Cicada Killing Wasps"
  Good educational narration. Includes short-duration movement of wasp hauling cicada at about 50-second mark.
• "Wild Moments: Cicada Killers Usually Ignore Humans"
  At about the 55-seconc mark, the wasp starts dragging cicada. The human handling the wasp seems gutsy to me. Good narration.
• "The work of a cicada killer"
  The handler is gutsier than I'd be, as he lets the wasp haul the cicada all over him.
• "'Cicada Killer' wasp stinging (cicada)"
  Another gusty human handling wasp with cicada.
• "Cicada killer gets a lift"
  Another video that shows someone not squeamish about a wasp with cicada landing on her.
• "Cicada Killer Wasp with Cicada filmed at 210 fps"
  Excellent capture of motion of wasp in flight with cicada.
• "Cicada killer wasp stinging a cicada (laying eggs)"
  The video title says it all.
• "Huge Cicada Killer Wasp Struggles to Bring Home Her prey"
  The video title says it all.
• "Cicada killer wasp carries prey to nest"
  The video title says it all.

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Related (new, as of 9/27/2019): Cicada Wasp, Pac-Mannish Deco

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For more articles about cicadas, enter "cicada" in the search box at the upper left of this window. Or find and click "cicada" link at Partial Index of Keywords section (just below Popular Posts section).