"One square mile of land contains more insects than the total number of
human beings on earth! The Earth has a surface area of 196,939,900 square miles."
Pictured is a cocoon cracked open that was found inside one of the chambers. The black wasps pictured above are known as organ-pipe mud daubers. They aren't aggressive wasps and neither are the other mud daubers. They'll investigate a human out of curiosity, but mostly they mind their own business, if you don't threaten them. People are often fearful of any wasp, but mud daubers rarely sting.
They don't spend much time in one place. Often you'll see them flying from one point to the next quite quickly without landing long at any one location. Their on-a-mission flight pattern calls for patience while photographing them because you have to be equally focused and quick.
My advice, if you find these wasps flying around you, is to avoid waving your arms and batting at them, so you don't give them reason to defend themselves, and you'll be able to enjoy observing these beautiful creatures. The black mud daubers are a black so rich, deep and iridescent you'll often see a sheen of blue.
They don't spend much time in one place. Often you'll see them flying from one point to the next quite quickly without landing long at any one location. Their on-a-mission flight pattern calls for patience while photographing them because you have to be equally focused and quick.
My advice, if you find these wasps flying around you, is to avoid waving your arms and batting at them, so you don't give them reason to defend themselves, and you'll be able to enjoy observing these beautiful creatures. The black mud daubers are a black so rich, deep and iridescent you'll often see a sheen of blue.
After choosing a sheltered location to build her nest, the wasp begins rolling quality clay-mud into tiny balls and then flies back to her building location with each ball. She forms one hollow tube at a time and then searches for prey to fill up the tubes. Her young feed on spiders, so she hunts down one spider at a time and with a paralyzing sting she brings the spiders back to her nest. She stuffs as many as she can in each tube and lays one egg per section, then seals it off with a mud cap. She creates layers of chambers of these hollowed mud pipes all to be filled with spiders and her eggs.
As mud dauber eggs hatch into larvae they immediately begin feeding on the stored spiders. After they've grown as much as they will at that stage, they spin a cocoon and evolve into a pupa for the winter. In springtime or summer, the pupa emerges as an adult wasp. The nest with holes through out indicate a full mud dauber life cycle.
As mud dauber eggs hatch into larvae they immediately begin feeding on the stored spiders. After they've grown as much as they will at that stage, they spin a cocoon and evolve into a pupa for the winter. In springtime or summer, the pupa emerges as an adult wasp. The nest with holes through out indicate a full mud dauber life cycle.
"These marvelous wasps prefer high quality clay to build their nests and
have been known to lead people to good deposits of clay for potters."
I had never seen a mud dauber nest until today. It fascinates me. I am saving one of the clay nests like I would a favorite rock, but I was able to break open some of the chambers on the back side and explore with tweezers. It was a like a mini archaeological find. It was so fun. I used a magnifying glass and carefully tweezed the holes open, leaving crumbs of clay all over, while tweezing large enough openings to gently pull out the cocoons. What I discovered, was that in each 5 inch pipe, there were up to 4 sections or chambers that had been capped off.
The collage below features the results of dissecting an abandoned nest. The chambers either had dead spiders, or cocoons in various stages. Lower left photo are dead spiders. Likely, an insect intruder got into that chamber and ate the larvae and had maybe munched on some of the spiders before fleeing. On the lower right is a partially formed pupa. I broke the cocoon open to view inside. It was perfectly sealed inside the chamber.
Pictured below is a cocoon cracked open that was found inside one of the chambers.
In one of the chambers was a fully formed mud dauber seen below. It had wings, head, and all legs intact, but just hadn't broken through the clay to take flight. It looked like it had been dead a long time.
The clay chambers were lined with this
fabric-looking material pictured below.
fabric-looking material pictured below.
Found beneath a bridge
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of
strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
- Rachel Carson
strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
- Rachel Carson
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