wasp vs spider

Yellow Jackets are easily distinguishable by their yellow and black coloring. Measuring in length from 12mm to about 16mm, the Yellow Jacket is a common sight throughout all of North America. These flyers are commonly found along the edges of forests and can make their hives nearer the ground than in trees like other wasps might do.

Adult Yellow Jackets will feed off of nectar while other adults pre-chew insects for consumption by the larva. A pregnant female will begin next construction in the spring, bringing about the first generation of Yellow Jacket for the year. Females from this brood will become hive workers and tend to the other young presented later. By the fall - or when cold weather begins to make its appearance - the males of the next will die off leaving only other mated females to continue generations the following year.

Yellow Jackets, particularly the females, are extremely aggressive and will sting repeatedly so avoidance is the best policy! Though avoidance is not always possible, do not swing at the Yellow Jacket as they can be easily provoked to attack.

An Eastern (V. maculifrons) and Western (V. pennsylvanica) species of Yellow Jacket exist with few variations in the yellow and black coloring.

Thread-Waisted Wasp - (Ammophila spp.)

The incredibly skinny waistline of this wasp helped name it. They can be found in meadows and open fields.

Females use a paralytic sting on softer insects, like caterpillars. They use their strong jaws to carry the stiff victim to an underground burrow created to hold eggs. When the wasp larvae emerge, they feed on the stiff, yet living victims until they pupate and leave the underground chamber.

Adults feed on flower nectar and small insects.

Tarantula Hawk - (Pepsis species)

Male and female Tarantula Hawks vary in subtle ways. Male antenna are straight, while their abdomens are segmented into 7 sections. Female antenna are curved with their abdomens segmented into only 6 sections. Tarantula Hawks take on a variety of colors but their orange wings against their darkish bodies set them off. The feed primarily on nectar though the females will actively hunt tarantulas. Tarantula Hawks can deliver a sting that is painful to people but paralyzing to tarantulas. Once paralyzed, the poor and helpless tarantula is brought back to the 'Hawks burrow where it is left with young Tarantula Hawk grubs as food. To further compound the fate of said tarantula, it is then buried alive while still paralyzed and left to the young Tarantula Hawks as nourishment.

Yellow Velvet Ant - (Dasymutilla spp.)

Despite its name, the Velvet Ant isn't an ant at all! It is a type of wasp. Ants have bent antennae and a twice-constricted waist, unlike velvet ants.

This family of wasp is mostly solitary instead of swarming and only males have wings. Females can deliver a painful sting, however, and should not be trifled with.

Larvae are parasitic, usually hatching from their eggs in the nests of other bees or wasps. They devour their neighbors.

Small Carpenter Bee - (Ceratina spp.)

This small bee resembles a wingless-ant. They are industrious and hard-working all spring and summer long. They can be found in and near woodlands and on flowers. Much smaller than the Carpenter Bee, they have their own family.

Females bore into twigs and stems of plants to lay their eggs. They remain with their brood until it is mature enough to live on its own.

Potter Wasp - (Eumenes fraternus)

Potter wasps have nests that look like ceramic jugs or pots. They create these mud nests on twigs, branches and the trunks of trees. The nest has only one chamber, unlike the many chambers inside a honeybee hive. They are most active during the summer.

A female will lay just one egg inside the chamber and then place paralyzed moth caterpillars inside it along with the egg before sealing the nest at the opening. The wasp larva will eat the caterpillars before making its way out of the nest.

Pigeon Tremex - (Tremex columba)

Although they look intimidating, this horntail wasp is not aggressive in nature like other wasps. They are commonly found in hardwood forests and are often seen by lumberjacks.

Many species of horntail wasps have a similar elongated, hard spine at the tip of their abdomen in addition to a stinger.

Females have ovipositors that can be as long as their entire body. The ovipositor looks similar to a needle and is used by the female to inject her eggs through the bark of trees for safe hatching.

There is only one Tremex species in North America.

Mutillid Wasp

Though they look and act like ants, the solitary wasps known as Velvet Ants are anything but. Wingless females are capable of rendering terribly painful stings, leaving human victims bewildered. Examining the antennae of a Velvet Ant will help distinguish it from a true ant. Ant antennae bend in a sharp 'elbow' while this wasp's antennae do not.

Adults drink nectar and water. Their larvae, however, are fantastic parasitic predators. The eggs of a Velvet Ant are laid near the eggs of other bees, wasps, or even flies. They hatch and quickly begin to devour the unsuspecting hosts.

This particular species is not as hairy as typical Velvet Ants (see Red Velvet Ant and Thistle Down Velvet Ant for comparison). They are extremely tiny wasps and look more like real ants than other members of the Mutillidae family.

Ichneumon Wasp - (Megarhyssa macrurus)

There are several different species of Ichneumon Wasp, each with its own color variations. Some are black and yellow, others reddish and striped. All have the Ichneumon Wasp body shape: a thin waist and an abdomen longer than the rest of the body. Members of the family Ophion have abdomens that are shorter than Megarhyssa, but they are still long in comparison to more familiar wasps.

Females may have a long, needle-like ovipositor which is often mistaken as a stinger. The sturdy ovipositor acts like a syringe, injecting eggs deep into wood (live trees, or logs) where the larvae will feed on any other insect larvae already deposited there. It is not uncommon to see females poking around wood in an attempt to find a good place to deposit her eggs. Males do not have the ovipositor so their abdomen ('tails') are shorter. Both genders are still wasps, however, and capable of stinging if threatened.

Giant Ichneumons tend to live in wooded areas and throughout all of North America, though they do stay away from the arid and hot desert regions and featureless plain states.

Giant Ichneumon adults do not eat at all. Larvae are parasites of Pigeon Horntail larvae, another type of wasp that deposits eggs in wood. The Ichneumon larvae will hatch and feed on the Horntail Wasp larvae.

Variations of the Giant Ichneumon include the Eastern Giant Ichneumon, the Lunar Giant Ichneumon and the Western Giant Ichneumon. These can all be found in their respective habitats consisting of Canada, the United States of America and Mexico. This is truly a North American insect!

Horntail Wasp

Females appear to have two menacing stingers, but they are actually an ovipositor (for injecting eggs into wood) and a spine that aids in splitting wood.

Honey Bee - (Apis mellifera)

Honey Bees break down into two classes, the worker bees (numbering up to 80,000 in a single nest) and the Queen Bee. Unlike wasps, they create hives out of wax (not a paper-like substance) and only swarm when they are without a queen (after she dies, but before a new one replaces her).

Working bees feature a nearly all-black head with a body coloring of golden brown and black with patches of a dull orange. Yellow bands are easily distinguishable on the abdomen and wings are clear. Their entire bodies are covered in tiny hairs with these being most notable on the head an body.

They are found throughout the United States and are also bred commercially. Currently, honey bee populations are disappearing from commercial hives for unknown reasons. Entomologists call this anomaly CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder. Honey bees are a super-pollinator for all fruits and vegetables grown for human consumption and a limited number of them can directly effect how much produce is harvested.

They originated as transplants from New World colonists coming to America. Workers measure between 9 and 18mm while queens cover some 18 to 20mm in length.

Golden Northern Bumble Bee - (Bombus fervidas)

The Golden Northern Bumble Bee features an all-black head and dark wings. A black band runs across the mostly yellow thorax and the abdomen is nearly all yellow with the exception of the very tip, which is black. White coloring is also present to the keen observer. The Golden Northern Bumble Bee is a relatively large species and includes worker and drone bees along with a queen bee in their hive structure.

Five-Banded Tiphiid Wasp - (Myzinum quinquecintum)

This medium-sized wasp is highly beneficial because they prey on beetles that destroy trees. The female wasp lays her eggs on May beetle larvae buried in the ground, leaving one wasp egg on one beetle larva. The wasp larva invades the beetle and slowly eats it from the inside out. The wasp larvae mature into adults in early summer. Unfortunately, this wasp is parasitized by Velvet Ants and may find its own larvae the victims of attack.

Males have a psuedo-stinger at the tip of their abdomen, while females have the real thing. Adults drink nectar.

This species can be found in gardens, meadows, fields or on lawns.