Great Black Wasp

There are some difficult things that happen when you practice being an Everyday Adventurer. Even if you try to share your adventures with others every single day, you just can't share every good thing you find. There are some days when you get lucky and can go back and find some of your past discoveries to share. This happens to be one of them.

What I have for you today appears to be a Great Black Wasp. I found this creature about a month and a half ago while at the end of a good hike. I was at one of my favorite nature parks, but it happened to be my only visit to that place for the entire summer. I had been distracted with several new places at the time, but I was glad to be back there.

I intended to give you a little bit of information on this bug, and I will give you a little bit, but I have something kind of different in mind this time. While I was doing my research on this creature I happened to find some of the information at a very well known place to me, and to some of you. While doing a Google search, I found a good post about these very same critters over at WiseAcre Gardens. So if you want additional information go check it out there.

You can find these relatively harmless wasps in the eastern and central United States in the later summer months, which is exactly when I found this one. These wasps hunt katydids and grasshoppers, and bury them in their nests with their eggs. See WiseAcre's site for more on this. They aren't aggressive because they are mostly solitary creatures, so they don't have a colony to defend.

When they are active, the great black wasp can be found on or near flowers. If you do a search on the internet most of the pictures you find will show them hovering over flowers. This is more of the behavior that you might relate to butterflies, but I wouldn't care to mess with any kind of wasp.

You might notice that the wasp looks a little different in this picture. The first thing you'll see is that it is looking straight at me. I must have gotten a little too close. But what is the other thing that looks different? Take a look at its wings. Its wings are spread out! I backed off a little bit when it did this.

The funny thing about this is that while I was browsing for information, somebody else mentioned the very same thing happening to them. They also backed away. These are big bugs, and this move can be intimidating, especially when you can clearly see that it is focused right on you!

After a few seconds of this the great black wasp flew away to find more food and to be away from me. I too decided it was time to move on. How did you like this little look into the recent past? I have plenty of them. Would you like a few more of these sometimes?