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About 4 meters above me, up in a tree those wasps was found. Blue wings, and a bright orange behind. About 2 cm in size.
Sparsely growing forest. (Hlane National Park)
Spotted on Apr 5, 2014
Submitted on May 12, 2014
7 Comments
Kel, I could not reach it :P
Lauren, that is very interesting that the idea of them nesting somehow was comfirmed. We are getting closer to something :)
John, thank you for your inteserting comment as well. The Mammoth wasp you linked to have similar blue shiny wings, and dark/black thorax. But I still hope to find an example with the furry orange abdomen.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/ac...
After John mentioned that they might be Scoliid wasps, I was reading that male Scoliids often aggregate for the night in groups. See this reference and the comments below the picture…..http://bugguide.net/node/view/140360. It is not your species, but lends criteria to the possibility that yours may be Scoliid males.
ei, tina, porque voce não sacudiu o galho? :D
Very cool behaviour. They are so clustered that it is a bit hard to really make out individuals and what they might be. They look a bit like some of our Australian scoliid wasps - here are some pictures.
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:b...
Of course, it wouldn't be the same species as over there - but you also have some similar wasps
http://www.ispot.org.za/node/239253
Well, did not study them much, it was about one hour from sunset and the cluster was just above my head, about two meters up... A bit tricky to follow the action :). They were quite inactive though. The nights was getting cooler at the time (down to 15 degrees celcius), so perhaps it is a way to save energy during night by nesting together. The closest I got to an individual wasp shot is photo no 2 unf.
Such an odd thing! What were they doing? It doesn't look like nest behavior. Were you able to get an individual wasp to see what they look like?