Thursday, October 9, 2008

Mud Wasps and Wonder Nests!





Mud wasps
(mud daubers) are seen coming inside the house through the windows and then getting out after a while. They fetch mud pellets to build nests on wall corners, ledges or the ceiling.


They also prefer 'artificial man made nests' - like the screw holes seen on the speakers, or the power plug points! They simply lay eggs in them and seal with mud.


I have seen colorful whorls of paper like nesting material inserted one over the other like plastic cups, inside power plug points. The nesting material used here are the petals from the flowers of Bougainvillaea! Inside the central tube-like part of this 'flower' the wasp lays eggs and seal.When I break open these wasp nests, I often find semiconscious spiders or caterpillars moving their parts now and then.



Cuckoo wasp is different and it behaves like cuckoo in placing its eggs in other mud wasps' nests to get its larvae fed and brought up by the host wasp!

Again and again I could post more and more about these wonder wasps that drive you away from their nests, and but do not sting you at all! You can share with me your own experiences with wasps here.


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