Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Waspy Looking Wasp

Just heard from my insect expert daughter and it looks like the "waspy looking bug" appears to her to actually be a wasp. Just keeping you posted.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh - a waspy wasp!

Pencil Writer said...

Weird that a wasp looks waspy, huh? Apparently there are a vast number of inscects that mimic other insects so that you can't always be certain if a wasp is a wasp or if an ant is really a wasp. Like the "velvet ant" which I think is really pretty--but apparently harmful to cows if stung (they're also called "cow ants")--are actually wingless wasps.

Then there's the whole flys that look like bees, bees that look like flies thing and since I wasn't the entomology student, I have to ask my daughter who was. It's all kind of interesting to me.

Amelia Ames said...

Mom *insert scornful tone here* they are NOT harmful to cows. A cow killer ant, or velvet ant, or Mutilidae (in the ent community) is called a cow killer because the hype is that it hurts bad enough to kill a cow. As Sarah is living proof, they can't kill anything bigger than another bug.

Pencil Writer said...

Now I do vaguely remember Sarah getting bitten/stung by one of those velvet ants. Poor thing has had her vicious stings from wasps, hasn't she. I also remember one (red wasp) getting in your boot once and stinging the ever lovin' out of you when you were really young, too! Bugs! Whatever would we do with 'em?