A female Oriental Wasp foraging on flowers of the Sodom's Apple
The female Oriental Wasp bears the distinct orange vestiture at the back of its head
Fully engaged with flower and pollen
On the wing, actively moving from flower to flower
It was on my weekend early morning walk along the desert bush trail in Warzan, Dubai, that I encountered a horde of shiny black wasps busy foraging on the blossoms of the Sodom's Apple (Calotropis procera). I was able to approach the blossoms and take photos of the wasps without incident. The Oriental Wasps were feasting on bountiful nectar and pollen, they do not want to be bothered and they do not mind the nosy but gentle explorer!
The Oriental Wasp, Camposomeriella thoracica (SCOLIIDAE)
Oriental wasps exhibit a clear display of sexual dimorphism. The female is 16-22mm long, wholly shiny black in color and bears an orange vestiture of hairs at the back portion of the head. She has a blunt, sickle-shaped mandible, her antennae are short and thick and she has a pair of orange-colored eyes. She also has a 1mm long stinger. The male is 12-17mm long, wholly gray-colored, with alternating red-orange and black markings on the abdomen, he has a vestiture of grey hairs at the back portion of the head, the mandible are smaller than the female, the antennae longer than the female, he has a pair of grey colored eyes. He has no stinger.
Distribution of the Oriental Wasp
These wasps are widespread and are reported to be present in Algeria, Benin, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Gambia, Greece, Guinea, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Pakistan, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
Biodynamics Notes
The Oriental Wasp does not construct hives. Adult males are gregarious-always hanging around near flowers in search for pollen and for potential mates. The adult female is solitary, actively searching for potential scarab larvae to lay her eggs. She can also burrow the soil to search for her host. Once a female locates a suitable beetle grub, it grabs it and injects her eggs into it. These eggs turn into legless larvae in a just a few days. The larva develops with its beetle grub host as it grows. It will eventually kill its host by consuming its internal organs, wherein it then spins a cocoon before it emerges as an adult wasp. (Now that's what you call killing it softly).
Both male and female wasps are NOT HARMFUL and NONAGGRESSIVE to humans. Male wasps simply avoid our presence and move on. The female will only sting if it is directly harassed. Her sting however, is not medically significant.
The Oriental Wasps are pollinators and natural enemies of scarab beetles.
Attention dear PMPs, not all bees, wasps and hornets species that we encounter require a spray-to-kill approach! Education is key. Know your insects. Understand their biodynamics. We also need to also inform our clients. Not all flying and crawling insects in their facility require the death sentence. We always have to EDUCATE ourselves and our customers and PRACTICE environmentally-sound pest management procedures.
Watching these jet-black lady pollinators with their bright orange coats foraging on the blossoms of the Sodom's Apple was such an awesome experience.
Awesome creature. Awesome CREATOR!
Wow awesome!!! Very interesting insect and now I know not all wasps and bees is not required to spray to kill. Very nice photos very detailed even no captions you can easily understand what it says! Thanks SamuraiBug
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment and appreciation of the article!
DeleteI love the killing me softly analogy. Just thinking where else do the the female wasps lay their eggs.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Linnox! The female wasps of this species are very host specific, they only lay their eggs on Scarab beetle larvae. They exert great effort to search for these grubs!
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