Tracking the return of the wasps

Published date26 November 2022
The spittlebug predator, Argogorytes carbonarius, is a handsome, 9mm-long, shining black wasp with clear wings that gleam metallic purple in sunlight. It dives into the little gobs of spittle-like foam that occur on plants in early summer and plucks out the spittle-bug nymph. This it carries to its nest in a bank of moist sand or silt

The nest can have one to 10 cells, each cell being provisioned with from 14 to 26 spittlebug nymphs. Only one egg is laid in each cell. All species of spittlebug are preyed on, both native and introduced, and the nymphs taken vary considerably in both size and age.

In 1999, Prof Hermann Schone, his wife Dr Hedwig Schone, from the Max Planck Institute, Germany, Dr Pauline Mahalski and I studied this wasp in an actively used gravel quarry on the bank of the Taieri River, near the Outram road bridge. Sixty-eight spittlebug predator wasps were nesting gregariously in sandy soil at the base of a mound of shingle. The four of us sat, day after day, on collapsible chairs positioned in front of the wasp’s underground nests as we recorded their activities.

The nest entrances were numbered by markers. We watched with binoculars. Prof Schone carried out experiments to see how the wasps returning from hunts re-located their nests. He collected a sample of wasps and placed half of these individually in clear plastic vials and half individually in opaque vials. He put the vials on a support on the front of his car and drove them to a place out of sight of the nests behind a hill a few kilometres distant...

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