Potter Wasp Giving Finishing Touches
When I was doing a shootout for the review of Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM I found this potter wasp at my garden building its nest. Unfortunately when i noticed she had built most of the nest and has gathered caterpillar to be served as food for her new born larvae. I was only able to take photos of her closing the beautiful nest. All these photos were taken using Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM on Canon EOS 7D using Canon Speedlite 580EX II with Rayflash adapter.
Potter wasps, also known as mason wasps, are very interesting insects that are named for the way and the form in which they build their hives. They are truly pottery artists and create unique and beautiful pot-like homes for their off-springs. There are many things about the potter wasp that makes them stand out from the rest and here are some interesting facts that you may not know about these unusual insects.
It is the female potter wasps that do all the construction on their homes, rather than the males.Possibly the simplest of the potter wasp constructions is made with mud and has tiny cells between the layers. The female will either gather droplets of water soon after rain fall mixed with her own saliva to make the mud. It is truly an amazing process!
Potter Wasp
Another of the homes that the potter wasp creates is made with mud like the first, but the shape is different. Rather than being a plain round shape, these are round with a thin neck at the top, much like a cork bottle or special vase.
The common potter wasp is primarily black in color, but it also has yellow or red markings on the thorax or abdomen. There are also some interesting tropical species that can have green or blue markings.
Female potter wasps take less than one day to completely build a nest. There are some female potter wasps that will make their nests out of pre-existing holes, but this is not as common as the lady who will start from scratch.
Potter wasps hunt for Beetle larva or caterpillars and paralyze them with their sting. They fly these paralyzed caterpillars to the hive they created. They lay their eggs on these larvae inside nests, one egg in each cell. and then seals off the cells to protect the babies. The sealed caterpillar lives till the eggs hatch and becomes food for the newly hatched wasp baby.
Paralyzed Captive Caterpillar inside The Nest
The potter wasp’s nest is rumored to have been the original inspiration for the Indian pottery that it so strongly resembles.
The diet of potter wasps consists primarily of nectar, spiders, beetle larvae, and young caterpillars.
Some potter wasps build their nests underground, but most have them hanging from a branch or limb above the ground. This is where you can look for one of your own to keep as a decorative piece. Be sure, of course, that it is an empty one or you may have one very angry wasp to deal with!
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January 6th, 2010 at 9:24 PM
Ha ha ha doc, your last paragraph reminds me of my primary school days when we would really search the bushes poking our fingers in every hole to get the ‘pot’ , never knowing what made them. Though I never got one and fortunately retain all my fingers
April 10th, 2011 at 10:34 PM
Thank you for these beautiful pictures. I really enjoyed them.
April 19th, 2011 at 2:49 PM
Dear Mary Lou Rounds,
Thanks for your compliments. Keep visiting as I plan to post regularly more such pictures.
December 12th, 2011 at 4:28 AM
Thanks for a fab picture, and so much detail. I was directed to your page by whatsthatbug.com after finding one of these beasts in my cottage in India, where I’m working for a few months. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and your info was very interesting.
December 12th, 2011 at 10:09 AM
Dear Steve Sargent,
Thanks for visiting my web page and for your compliments. Potter wasps are pretty common wasps here. As you can see I regularly (once a week) post my photos and observation here on my blog. Keep visiting.
December 12th, 2011 at 9:59 PM
[...] and your individual might be in the genus Eumenes. We found a match for body shape on the Krishna Mohan Photography website, and then we found what really resembles your species on the India Nature Watch website. [...]
February 3rd, 2012 at 7:22 PM
Thank you very much for your post. I have three “pots” attached to my curtain since the end of this summer. Here is a photo of them: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-csmYfQIMMVg/TsZVJlPnA7I/AAAAAAAABjk/mm9d0VOYrzQ/s1600/comlek.JPG
They are still sealed. Do you know when the baby wasps will hatch their eggs and come out of the nest? I would love to observe them doing this. And also it would be good to know as I should leave the window open during their times of hatch.
February 3rd, 2012 at 7:33 PM
Thanks for visiting my website. Inside all those pots are a caterpillar which will be food for those wasps. Usually they hatch in 10-15 days. Once they break open you will see fully grown young wasps coming out. You can leave them out by opening window then.
Let me know how it goes on.
Thanks and keep visiting