A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves, or may be a simple depression in the ground, or a hole in a rock, tree, or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, or paper, may also be used. Nests can be found in all types of habitat.
Wasps of the genus Sphex are cosmopolitan predators that sting and paralyze prey insects. Sphex is one of many genera in the old digger wasp family Sphecidae, though most apart from the Sphecinae have now been moved to the family Crabronidae. There are over 130 known Sphex species.
Yellowjacket or yellow jacket is the common name in North America for predatory social wasps of the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula. Members of these genera are known simply as "wasps" in other English-speaking countries. Most of these are black and yellow like the eastern yellowjacket Vespula maculifrons and the aerial yellowjacket Dolichovespula arenaria; some are black and white like the bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata. Others may have the abdomen background color red instead of black. They can be identified by their distinctive markings, their occurrence only in colonies, and a characteristic, rapid, side-to-side flight pattern prior to landing. All females are capable of stinging. Yellowjackets are important predators of pest insects.
Wasps in the family Pompilidae are commonly called spider wasps, spider-hunting wasps, or pompilid wasps. The family is cosmopolitan, with some 5,000 species in six subfamilies. Nearly all species are solitary, and most capture and paralyze prey, though members of the subfamily Ceropalinae are kleptoparasites of other pompilids, or ectoparasitoids of living spiders.
Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large, solitary digger wasp species in the family Crabronidae. The name may be applied to any species of crabronid that preys on cicadas, though in North America, it is typically applied to this species, also referred to as the eastern cicada killer in order to further differentiate it from the multiple other examples of related wasp species. Sometimes, they are called sand hornets, although they are not hornets, which belong to the family Vespidae. This species can be found in the Eastern and Midwest U.S. and southwards into Mexico and Central America. They are so named because they hunt cicadas and provision their nests with them. Cicada killers exert a measure of natural control on cicada populations, and as such they may directly benefit the deciduous trees upon which the cicadas feed.
The Bembicinae comprise a large subfamily of crabronid wasps that includes over 80 genera and over 1800 species which have a worldwide distribution. They excavate nests in the soil, frequently in sandy soils, and store insects of several orders, for example Diptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera, Lepidoptera and Odonata in the burrows. Some species are kleptoparasites of other Bembicinae. The different subgroups of Bembicinae are each quite distinctive, and rather well-defined, with clear morphological and behavioral differences between them.
The Bembicini, or sand wasps, are a large tribe of crabronid wasps, comprising 20 genera. Bembicines are predators on various groups of insects. The type of prey captured tends to be rather consistent within each genus, with flies (Diptera) being the most common type of prey taken. Nests are typically short, simple burrows, with a single enlarged chamber at the bottom which is stocked with freshly paralysed prey items for the developing wasp larva; the egg may sometimes be laid before the chamber is completely stocked. It is common for numerous females to excavate nests within a small area where the soil is suitable, creating large and sometimes very dense nesting aggregations, which tend to attract various species of parasitic flies and wasps, many of which are cleptoparasites; in some cases, the sand wasps prey on their own parasites, a surprisingly rare phenomenon in the animal kingdom. Although sand wasps are normally yellow and black, some are black and white with bright green eyes.
The European paper wasp is one of the most common and well-known species of social wasps in the genus Polistes. Its diet is more diverse than those of most Polistes species—many genera of insects versus mainly caterpillars in other Polistes—giving it superior survivability compared to other wasp species during a shortage of resources.
Howard Ensign Evans was an American entomologist who was a specialist on wasps. He was also the author of several popular works on entomology including Life on a Little-known Planet (1978), The Pleasures of Entomology (1985) and Wasp Farm (1963).
Philanthus gibbosus, which is commonly referred to as a beewolf due to its predation practices, is a species of bee-hunting wasp and is the most common and widespread member of the genus in North America. P. gibbosus is of the order Hymenoptera and the genus Philanthus. It is native to the Midwestern United States and the western Appalachians. P. gibbosus are often observed to visit flowers and other plants in search of insect prey to feed their young. The prey that P. gibbosus catches is then coated in a layer of pollen and fed to the young wasps.
Mass provisioning is a form of parental investment in which an adult insect, most commonly a hymenopteran such as a bee or wasp, stocks all the food for each of her offspring in a small chamber before she lays the egg. This behavior is common in both solitary and eusocial bees, though essentially absent in eusocial wasps.
Philanthus crabroniformis is a species of bee-hunting wasp of North America. The species primarily preys upon Halictidae. They nest in sandy soils.
Sphex ichneumoneus, known commonly as the great golden digger wasp or great golden sand digger is a wasp in the family Sphecidae. It is identified by the golden pubescence on its head and thorax, its reddish orange legs, and partly reddish orange body. This wasp is native to the Western Hemisphere, from Canada to South America, and provisions its young with various types of paralyzed Orthoptera.
Cerceris fumipennis, the only species of buprestid-hunting Crabronidae occurring in eastern North America, is found throughout the continental United States east of the Rockies: from Texas and Florida north to Maine, Wyoming, and into Canada. The wasps most often nest in open areas of hard-packed sandy soil surrounded by woody habitat suitable for their buprestid beetle prey.
Ammophila sabulosa, the red-banded sand wasp, is a species of the subfamily Ammophilinae of the solitary hunting wasp family Sphecidae, also called digger wasps. Found across Eurasia, the parasitoid wasp is notable for the mass provisioning behaviour of the females, hunting caterpillars mainly on sunny days, paralysing them with a sting, and burying them in a burrow with a single egg. The species is also remarkable for the extent to which females parasitise their own species, either stealing prey from nests of other females to provision their own nests, or in brood parasitism, removing the other female's egg and laying one of her own instead.
Polistes canadensis is a species of red paper wasp found in the Neotropical realm. It is a primitively eusocial wasp as a member of the subfamily Polistinae. A largely predatory species, it hunts for caterpillar meat to supply its colony, often supplementing its developing larvae with nectar. The most widely distributed American species of the genus Polistes, it colonises multiple combs, which it rears year-round.
Poecilopompilus algidus is a species of spider wasp which is widespread in the Americas.
Osmia caerulescens, the blue mason bee, is a species of solitary bee from the family Megachilidae. It has a Holarctic distribution extending into the Indomalayan region, although its presence in the Nearctic may be due to human assisted introduction.
Augochloropsis is a genus of brilliant metallic, often blue-green, sweat bees in the family Halictidae. There are at least 140 described species in Augochloropsis.
Ammophila procera, the common thread-waisted wasp, is a species of thread-waisted wasp in the family Sphecidae. It is a common species, found in southern Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and south to Central America.
