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Project Noah Nature School
Ammophila sp.
This seems to be a species of Ammophila with the silver thoracic stripes. It was about 2.5 cm long and very restless and moving constantly. When my camera scared her off, she would return in a few seconds to keep working. She seemed to be starting (or ending?) a burrow in rough sand and pebbles. Of many many pictures, these are the only ones with a wasp still in them :) Family Sphecidae.
Tropical Pine Forest (not much sand or desert conditions at all). She was working in a pile of trail-side sand and gravel. Montebello National Park, Chiapas.
See another metallic blue-black species of this wasp from the center of the State of Chiapas (http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/492...) See also these two articles by BugEric on Ammophila species. They are fascinating wasps with an incredible life history. http://bugeric.blogspot.mx/2010/11/wasp-.... htmlhttp://bugeric.blogspot.mx/2010/11/wasp-wednesday-ammophila-aberti.html.
Spotted on Mar 29, 2014
Submitted on Apr 7, 2014
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