The Sting Of The Long-bodied Digger Wasp

There is a very considerable difference in the venomous strength or power of bee and wasp stings

. The virulence may be governed somewhat, but not entirely, by the size of the insect. The little swift-flying, burrowing bees, Andrenidae, cause no greater hurt than the western agricultural ants. The very small sand-burrowing wasps, Oxybelidae, have such weak stings that not only can they hardly puncture one's finger, but when they do get through the thinner skin, the result is but a severe itching like that caused by a single pustule of poison ivy. These insects crush their fly victims with their jaws; their stings are evidently not powerful enough to put them to sleep.

Quite different are the little yellow-jackets, which not only are eager to sting when their nests are threatened, but inject enough poison to make the recipient fully aware of it. Yet I have known a toddling child to be covered by yellow-jackets and stung all over and hardly to be made ill. If half the number of honeybees had been as attentive the baby would have died. There is an authentic record of honeybees killing a crippled but healthy horse. Far less severe than that of the yellow-jacket is the sting of the long-bodied digger wasp, Ammophila. It normally paralyzes caterpillars as large as itself, but this accomplishment marks the height of its powers. As though it knew the futility of its poison it cannot be induced to use its sting in defense of its burrow. The same may be said of the mud-dauber wasps, Scelephron and Pelopeeas, and of the jug-makers, Eumenes.

An occasional stab from these insects is felt by the careless collector, but can be considered of small and brief importance. The solitary wasps as a class and with only a few exceptions are not powerful stingers; their venom, while no doubt useful as a protection against many foes, seems to have been developed principally for the purpose of rendering their prey helpless. The caterpillar and grasshopper-catchers rarely kill their victims outright, though frequently stinging them many times, and only about half the spiders caught and stung repeatedly by the digger wasps and the mud-daubers are killed at once. It is probable that the wasps withhold a portion of their poison, involuntarily perhaps, for they have an abundance of it.

It is a fact that the insertion of a fine insect pin into the body of a spider will cause it to die quickly, so that in some cases, especially with small spiders, there would seem to be little need of poison for the wasps' purpose.

by: David Bunch

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