Wasp in hunting mode
When I saw this wasp (Vespidae, Eumeninae) looking so busy on the tip of an hibiscus leaf I naturally looked more closely and saw what she was after, the very slim yellowish caterpillar in its retreat.
The action didn’t last long. The wasp flew off and the caterpillar was no more to be seen; I assumed that the wasp got her prey but it’s possible that the caterpillar escaped by dropping from the leaf on a thread of the silk it used to construct its retreat.
The caterpillar’s retreat: the sides of the leaf are pulled together with silk, and there is a caterpillar-sized hole at the upper end
I had seen these constructions before but never known what made them or why, so the incident solved a mystery for me.
The wasp, by the way, wasn’t hunting on her own account but for her progeny. All adult Vespidae (which covers most of the insects most of us think of as wasps – see this page on the Brisbane Insects site) feed on nectar but hunt caterpillars or spiders for their larvae. Paper wasps are included in the family – see this post about their life cycle for a photo of one with a ball of minced caterpillar – and here for good measure is a shot of our large black-and-yellow mud dauber with a caterpillar.
If it matters, these photos were taken nearly three months ago, in mid March, but I didn’t find time to upload them before my holidays. Better late than never, as they say.
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