9 Red Velvet Ants 1 Japanese Wasp Nest in Garden

[applestar]

Such a coincidence, but today while out in the garden, I noticed with corner of my eye a hovering body above my head at a spot where a hummingbird regularly does this. So I looked up brightly, ready to say "Good morning!" to it as usual.

To my surprise, it wasn't a hummingbird hovering not 2 feet above my face, it was smaller but huge for an insect -- at first I thought hummingbird moth, but there was another not-hummingbird nor hummingbird moth characteristic: silent. When my eyes focused, I realized it was a gigantic wasp, and remembered this thread -- a Cicada Killer wasp.

Cicadas were singing in the background....

-- Have you noticed that not only animals and birds, but insects also seem to sense your gaze? The moment your eyes focus on them, they turn and look, freeze, or dart away. That's what this one did, darted up at an angle to the elderberry and inspected each berry truss, then tried the corn, then flew off. Deadly (I thought) silent in flight the whole time. I tried to take a picture but it was moving too fast.

A short while later, I heard the loud !!!GIGI!!! alarm call of a Cicada then silence. I think the wasp caught up to it.

[rainbowgardener]

Interesting you should mention it. I looked it up to see what the Cicada Killer looked like:



This shows the size of it:


I'm pretty sure I just saw one this morning, although I just got a glimpse of it before it flitted off.

[thanrose]

ah, I've seen them before I think. Knew they were Hymenoptera but did not know any specifics. and I didn't associate them with velvet ants, also Hymenoptera sp.

[Gary350]

A few days ago the cicadas started buzzing again. Today we found another red velvet ant. I have it on video this time click the link.

https://www.facebook.com/gary.weaver.50 ... 913413892/

[applestar]

Uh oh Gary, I can't access it -- the link takes you to a Facebook login page.

[Gary350]

Uh oh Gary, I can't access it -- the link takes you to a Facebook login page.

I uploaded the video to Facebook then copied and pasted the link here. You probably need to log into Facebook to watch the video. I don't use photo bucket anymore it has turned into a nightmare of advertisements that is extremely slow and hard to use.

[Gary350]

Another Red Velvet Ant. This is the first Red Velvet Ant I have seen in the morning, all others were seen in the evening when sun was low in the sky and temperature had dropped about 15 degrees cooler than mid day. I put a 1 pint mason jar over this one to get pictures. Video will not focus that close up to get good video. This is number 11, no telling how many Red Velvet Ant I did not see, could have been 30, 50, maybe 100. Last week when the cicada stopped buzzing and cicada killer wasps were gone and I had not seen a Red Velvet Ants for several days I thought the cycle was over and they were all gone. Today the trees or buzzing with 1000s of cicadas again. Red Velvet Ants must be sensitive to heat I put the mason jar over the Red Velvet Ant in about 3 minutes it was in a panic to get out running very fast all over and trying to climb the side of the jar then few minutes later it was dead. My thermometer says 82 degrees, in side the jar is hotter. I bet that is why I have never seen any Red Velvet Ants in the hottest part of the day.

[ID jit]

They might be beneficial, but I would not want those things close to where I walk bare foot. From what I read, they both fall into the category of wishing-you-dead kinds of venomous stings.

I would have already mixed up the rust and aluminum and cooked those holes well past well done.