Brown-legged Grass-carrying Wasp

Isodontia auripes

Summary

You’ll know this wasp by its dark, shiny body, reddish legs, and brown wings with a bluish tint. 

These solitary, predatory wasps prefer DIY to new construction, adapting pre-existing tunnels such as abandoned carpenter bee nests, hollowed branches, bee hotels, holes in soil banks and between rocks, or even spaces such as window runners and folded patio umbrellas! These spaces are partitioned and plugged with grass, and the females can sometimes be observed carrying long blades of grass, as their common name suggests.

 Female wasps hunt and paralyze tree crickets and katydids to provide for their larvae. They are not aggressive and don’t actively defend their nests, so removal isn’t necessary.

Ecosystem Connections

One of nature’s pest-controllers, the grass-carrying wasp helps to keep populations of insects in check as it hunts insect prey to feed to its larvae. Wasps are attracted to the nectar of many native plants and may also serve as ‘accidental’ pollinators.

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