Cicada Killer Wasps

Maybe you saw one this summer…and ran back inside the house! An understandable, if unwarranted, reaction to seeing one of our largest wasp species, the cicada killer wasp (Sphecius speciosus). This solitary, ground nesting wasp sports yellow-on-black body coloration, with translucent amber wings. They look like everyone’s nightmare wasp.

It turns out that they are only a nightmare if you are a cicada. Their common name comes from their lifestyle – they hunt cicadas, catching and immobilizing them with a sting, and then laying eggs inside them. Obviously, only the females do this! In fact, the males have no stinger at all and could not sting if they wanted to.

Even the females rarely sting defensively. They are quite mild mannered, in the way of solitary wasps (unlike nastier hive dwelling relatives such as yellowjackets). There is this scientist who developed a scale to rate the severity of insect stings…based on his own experience getting stung! The scale ranges from 1 to 4, with things like sweat bees at the low end, and bullet ants and tarantula hawk wasps at the high end. Apparently, when rating the cicada killer, the intrepid scientist had to hold the wasp in his fingers and repeatedly poke himself with her rear end before finally provoking a defensive sting. He rated it less than 1! In other words, off the chart at the low end.

So when you see one, don’t worry – she is totally NOT interested in stinging you, and it wouldn’t hurt if she did.

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