Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Wildlife Wednesday - who lives here?

These mud nests are right at the very top corner of the garage door. They're only small, maybe 5 cm long by 1 cm diameter. I spied them today, which makes me wonder how long they've been there!!

No one seems to be at home right now, and I suspect it might be paper wasps' nest. (If so, Mr E will be out with the bug spray drowning them in it, so I might keep it quiet for a while).

Oh no. I'm wrong! What a shock!

I think the nest might belong to POTTER WASPS. I was so close! Thank goodness for the Australian Museum website, here's their info on potter wasps.

Paper wasps make nests that look like quills of paper. Potter wasps make mud nests. Gees, you'd think I'd be able to remember that now! I've never heard of potter wasps before. Now I'll know.

Potter wasps are only 1.5 cm long and are solitary. So no colonies forming with these guys. And they're not aggressive and rarely attack humans (Mr E will be so happy; I still might keep quiet though!).

The mud nests are filled with caterpillars and grubs that they stock in there, cover in mud, ready for their larvae to eat them, live! It's like a living larder. Right. I'll remember not to knock that down on my head :)

Pretty stoked about learning something new today. I'll have to keep my eye out for the wasps.

This is why I love Wednesday's posts. I would have gone on believing they were paper wasps, and never even met a potter wasp without having to look this up!

2 comments:

  1. wasps are the nastiest critters. I don't like spiders much, but I cannot help but feel sorry for those insects that wasps catch, sting, paralyse and basically leave helpless for their offspring to wake up, and then eat!
    Nasty critters. Where's my mortein!! I'm with Mr E!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, no! Don't tell him! I'm quite fond of wasps and spiders. I like that bit of a dark side to the animal world - makes humans seem not quite so bloody horrible :)

      Cate xo

      Delete