Black Wasp

Introduction

They are well known as Great Black Wasp and are known scientifically as Sphex pensylvanicus. They are a species of digger wasps found mostly in North America. They have stings but are not aggressive, when they sting swelling does occur but you can feel pain as their stings are very painful. Black wasps grow well in warm weather and females are generally larger than males. They help a lot in pollination and thereby maintaining ecological balance. These great Black Wasps do not form multiple colonies but may lay a number of eggs.

Appearance

They are approximately 20-30 mm in length and possess large compound eyes with strong chewing mandibles. Their body and wings are deep black in colour and their overall appearance looks like a blue iridescent sheen. The body of a Black Wasp is covered with a large number of hairs through which they can collect pollen easily. They possess black bodies and markings may vary from species to species. Tiny pinched eyes and long segmented antennae are their noticeable characteristics.  

Life Cycle

Females form their nests below the ground and they do not take help from any sister workers and alone dig into the ground with the help of their spiny legs and mouth. They form a series of chambers and each chamber has an egg that is assigned to it. This egg will give a larva that hatches and develops into pupae and these overall changes and developments occur from winter to summer. After becoming adults, the males go in search of a female mate and the females who become mates of any adult male will form their new nests.

Habits

When you talk about Black Wasps, they have a number of unique habits which are given below:

• They generally form nests in wall cavities, lofts and garages so that they can easily come outside from it.
• Females are a little bit more aggressive than males and sting rapidly and repeatedly.
• A lot of nests are also formed in bushes, rodents burrows and hollow trees.
• When they are young then they prefer to eat insects but after maturity, they prefer to eat sweet foods and the workers will then act as pests for humans.
• Their colony is very big and may also consist of approximately 25,000 wasps.