This freaked me out. I'm allergic to all bees/wasps so we killed it before looking it up. Sure wish we hadn't. Turns out they're cicada killers and rarely sting humans. But this baby was HUGE!! It was on one of our bell pepper plants.
Giant wasp this morning
Oh my daughter told me about those last year- I didn't see one but she said they are huge! and apparently they lay eggs underground?
Yep, from what we read, they tunnel. No more barefoot out in the back yard! They're tracking them in San Antonio so we sent them the picture. I couldn't believe how big it was...about the size of medium butterfly...about 3" x 3".
I had these last year - they got into the veggie patch and they got very mean after a while when we tried to pick some veggies (I am guess that they get that way after they lay eggs ??)
Yikes! They look like they could be pretty scary to me!
Wow, great photo . . . We used to see these - zoom by - while sitting on the bank of the Medina River just south of San Antonio. Oddly enough I was just telling someone about them a few days ago and how they'd hunt the cicadas in the trees along the river banks. You could here the cicada's "song" change from a steady hum to more of an "AHHHHH" just seconds after one of these guys would zoom by. Obviously they love them and catch them to carry back to their burrows - likely to feed their young.
They are massive in size and will scare the heck out of an unsuspecting person if they zoom'd by your head . . . hopefully you won't have a cicada on your shoulder if that ever happens . . . lol
Just my 2 cents
GD
LOL, great visual of cicadas noticing one of the wasps zeroing in on them!
ewwwwww...you can hear them screaming?? lol
Heck yeah :d the bloody little sap suckers ;)
lol
We have those here. They're not usually agressive unless you get between them and a cicada!
Cicada wasps will definitely make you run the other way! But they are pretty much nonaggressive...except with each other when males are territorial...and females are fighting for nesting sites. Pretty amazing to see one fly off with a stunned cicada and bury it. I use to have males flying into glass doors...apparently upon seeing their reflections in the glass and looking for a battle! I had a whole community of them near my front door at an apartment complex here in SA. My fiance from Boston hated wading thru them...lol. He tells me that everything is definitely bigger in Texas.... :)
This is the first year I've noticed them in my yard. I think they're huge! If they pass near me, their buzz is pretty loud, almost like a hummingbird's.
Oh man..is that what that is? One landed by me the other day and I walked closer to check it out, It flicked its wings as if to say..close enough dude, I slowly backed away to get my camera in the house- when I came back out it was gone.....oh boy ..it just dawned on me...that right after that I found a cicada on the ground...with only his left wings, the right ones were gone.....now two and two are adding up!!..I brought the cicada in the house to show my friend..and it was buzzing ..I was promptly asked to escort the cicada back outside...how very interesting! Cicada CSI...
i found this
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2078A.html
Okay, I don't think GD was yanking my chain on the screaming cicada thing. I was out doing some pruning, deadheading, weeding...you know, the "whipping" part of gardening , when I kept hearing these weird little chirping sounds. But they weren't like the sounds of any birds we have around. But they weren't chirpy really, more like little yelps or almost like little screams. And then it dawned on me. I could only take it for another 30 minutes. We have tons of cicadas and I kept hearing one like every 20-30 seconds. It finally freaked me out so bad I had to go in the house. I'm not crazy about cicadas but I'm not crazy about hearing them get murdered either. Btw, Lafayette Univ is tracking the location of the cicada killers. Here's the website:
http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/helpcicadaresearch.html
lol . . . see there . . . I told ya . . . they LOVE them little scream'n sap suckers :D
I really thought you were kidding. It was CREEPY. My husband still doesn't believe me. He was outside and claims not to have heard anything. But then again, he has to have music/tv BLASTING to hear any of it. He just thinks I'm being girlie but it was like 'Cicada Psycho'. lol
lol that's too funny . . . I guess you'll have to get you a Walkman just to go back outside now . . . at least until the 'screaming cicada' season is over . . . lol
Wow, this thread has been very informational. I wondered what in the world these huge waspy things are. We have them in our backyard and they burrow into my flowerbeds. DH has not ever seen one and thinks I'm nuts. But here is the proof. Thanks for the websites..I'll send the links to DH so he can see I'm not nuts.
Are y'all going to try and catch one of these buggers and send it to the people in that link?
Michelle
Catch a cicada wasp??? lol....heeeecck no...I found a dead one once and that was close enough though I did get a close look at it. And the stinger on that thing!...But remember, they are a "nonaggressive" species..lol
Oh no way..not me..I saw that wasp looking for something ...now that I can put the whole picture together, and it's body language was quite clear to me--- buzz off buster!! naaa..they are too big and give you that spine tingle shoulder wagging get off of me feeling. Yes, it left an impression on me, flicking those wings and looking at me. At the time, I didn't know I was between it and the cicada. When I picked up the cicada it buzzed all of the way into the house ..we think they loud in the trees, they are very loud screeching in the house.
No, I don't think I'd like to try and catch one. They would probably consider that an act of aggression and I'm allergic to wasps so I imagine that kind of stinger would put me in the hospital in pretty bad shape. I'm not that dedicated to science !
Wow, it's funny how things happen. I had never seen one of these or heard of them until this thread. And now I saw one!
At lunch I met my friend at this lady's house to help her with a piece of furniture she had purchased. I was parked outside the house waiting for my friend, while admiring the lady's garden with my window down. Suddenly, I heard this loud bzzz and then something landed next to my car about 4 feet away. It was one of thess wasps wrapped around a cicada. I believe it was incapacitating the cicada because it stayed there a while. I was sitting there with my head out the window watching, when a car drove by. It scared the wasp and he let go of the prey and I immediately started rolling my window up. The wasp buzzed up toward my window like he was coming into the car. I never wished I had a non electric window until that point, because it just would not go fast enough. I got it up though and after buzzing at me more like I scared him, he went back down on the ground, hopped to his prey, grabbed it and flew off into a deeply treed yard.
The piece of furniture was smaller than thought and my friend did not need my help after all. But I am glad I went because I got to see one of the wasps and the lady let my dig up some of her Turks Cap that was taking over her yard (which was not easy to do in flip flops)! Turks Cap was on my list of things to get for the natural area at the back of the lot. :-)
okay, so I'm out in the tomato garden and one is buzzing around me. Good grief, he had the entire backyard to goof around it, but yet he chose the same area I was working in. I had one of my flip flops off ready to defend myself. I kept telling him to go away or I'd spank him w/my flip flop. My neighbor heard me and was laughing! How embarassing.
That's amazing . . . funny how things work like that.
Speaking of chance meetings . . . I had a close encounter just a bit ago with a very unsuspecting visitor while mowing the front lawn. I caught something bright and moving out of the corner of my eye . . . much to my surprise it was a beautiful and fairly large Coral Snake. This is only the second one I've ever seen in the wild and the first was over 20 years ago. I rushed in to get the camera and got a few shots, but none like what I was wanting to get. He was obviously spooked by the mower and wasn't really in the mood to pose for me and found cover pretty fast. I'll post a couple after I finish mowing the back and come back in for another tea break. Maybe I can get a few more . . . he's still out there hide'n under an old steel tractor wheel :D .
Why do those guys want us to kill the wasps? I don't get it, shouldn't we be paying homage to them or something? Frankly cicadas drive me a little nuts so something that eats them seems like a good thing...NO? Am I missing something here?
LOL, yes it is ironic how these stories pop up. Other than us knowing what to look for and what we're looking at- I wonder if there is an increase in these wasps. Have you ever seen the discovery channel special about the giant wasps that attack bees nests 5-8 of the giant wasps can take on a whole hive...that's what these cicada wasps reminded me of..
I've never seen a coral snake. I am convinced I need to have a camera tied around my neck when I go outside.
Speaking of things popping up- I was telling my daughter than years ago, when I was a kid no one ever heard of heart worm and then when I 1st heard of heart worm it was a problem only in the east- so did we just not know it was there and it was there all the time? Did we bring into this country from some other country? Is it a new species? or is it some sort of response to environmental, pesticide conditions? or am I completely out in left field and have forgotten to take my medicine?
I don't know- I think there are alot of things here already. For example I overturned my outside aquarium that had water in it from the rain, underneath were thin worm like leaches. They have sort of an axe/hammer head. I have found them in the pond all the time. Now it could be..that these things are imported..with the tropical lilies and stuff..but chances are all these things in some form or another may be here already.
LEACHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well isn't that interesting? I could live my whole life w/o any contact or sight of leaches and still feel it was a complete and fullfilling life. But that's just me. I saw the movie The African Queen and never wanted anything to do w/ leaches!
hehehe...these look nothing like those ...they almost look like worms - with the exception we know worms don't do well in water. Now I see them when I clean out the filter in my pond. I saw a discovery channel show that said leaches are much more common and wide spread than previously thought...even in New Jersey - I think I have a photo of one
http://davesgarden.com/journal/ed/viewimage.php?did=8770
like I said..the ones I find look like worms, except the occasional ones that have and axe head..those are a little more unpleasant to look at...
But back to wasps...:) for our host thread person
ugh it is possible I have seen them, been near them...yuck- I do not like them sam I am!
Yes would much rather talk about big wasps!
rjudd, is this them?
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/view_question.php?id=972
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~sos-iwla/Stream-Study/Catalog/FGPlanarian.HTML
If so, get rid of it! They eat earthworms.
Oh boy...yup...that is it...
So the ones in the pond, and in my picture were a leach...the other thing is I saw today is different. That is exactly what I saw...Oh great...like my battle with the pests wasn't enough already!!
Oh great..they are both planarians....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
This host thread person doesn't mind if we change topics...one topic invariably leads to something else. I just wanted to share the mammoth creature and I'm glad I did!! =)
Thank you host person! That is how my threads are too...I have learned more from general conversation..like..I would NEVER have found out that I have worm murderers in my garden. Yes..I am glad you got a photo of it..I wish they had mini cameras to put around your neck like a necklace..(okay ones that we can afford and have digital quality)
oh my god now I have to worry about worm killing planarians! Like I don't have enough problems in life! What next?
I am glad you mentioned them too. I have never seen one myself, but had heard about them in the newspaper a few years ago. I could not remember what they were called when you described them, but was able to find them with some google searches.
I agree with the camera thing! I have used my camera phone, but the pictures are not very good and can't be transfered easily. I really wish I would have had a camera when I saw the rat snake in front of my house last week. :)
LOL April! Just use some gloves and move them to a zip lock baggy, close it and then trash it. That way you don't have to murder them. Either that or do what I do with insects and such that I don't want. If you have one of those platform bird feeders or a empty bird bath, put them in there. Your driveway works well to, because the birds usually find them before they can get to the grass. The birds love the snack.