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Photo#112213
??Black Wasps?? Cricket Wasps?? Solitary Wasps??

??Black Wasps?? Cricket Wasps?? Solitary Wasps??
Ausint, Travis County, Texas, USA
May 23, 2007
Size: 1.5 inches
Solitary Wasps? Cricket Wasps?
These little buggers are sleeping at night on my back porch. Noramaly we Live and Let Live but my wife is worried about about them and will not go outside. Can someone please ID these things. I would normally break out the Raid but these are non-aggressive and seem intuitive to our movements. There was one that would "strike a pose" when I would move but that was all that he/she would do (wing flare).

There are about 20 of them that come to our back porch window to sleep at night (not there during the day) they have been coming for about the last week to week 1/2. Do they not nest? Are they orphaned? I have no clue.

Name me Please.

Thank you!

B.
http://www.twtii.com/Bug.html

Frassed
Moved from Blue Mud Wasp.

Video
This video is of the second time (in a different place) that I have seen them congregating. Both times have been within the last month or so, and I'd never seen such a thing before. I grew up in the country but had lived in city settings for quite a while before moving back to the sticks recently. I haven't found any other videos of this type of congregating in my web searches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Ae2l3HJOs

There are also links in the description of that video to the original sighting and more of this particular sighting.

I'm in southeastern Louisiana now and grew up in south Texas.

Maybe...
Chalybion, a Blue Mud Dauber. The common one that is widely distributed one is C. californicum. This species nests in mud cells, often taking over the nests of another mud dauber Sceliphron caementarium or Trypoxylon politum. I think males form sleeping aggregations at night.

 
It seems that you are right ...
I emailed an entomologist and recieved this reply as well: So I will put the Raid away and "co-exist" especially due to the fact they seem to feed on Black Widow spiders.

Thanks

B.

Those appear to be the blue mud dauber, Chalybion californicum (Saussure), which is in the family Sphecidae. They are known to roost at night sometimes at homes for no apparent reason. Those that accumulate are mostly (probably all) males that can not sting.

There is very little danger to getting stung. Even females of the mud daubers seldom sting and usually only when they are grabbed. They may appear threatening but most of that behavior is just a bluff to defend the territory.

I hope that helps.
jaj

 
Yes.
I concur with the others, and replied to your post in the "Forums" section to that effect.

I have searched the web ...
I have looked at pictures of a number of different wasps but there are diffrences:
Blue Black Wasps
Spider Wasps
Great Black Wasps
Solitary Wasps

They all seem to have something that resembles them but is not right as in the Blue Black Wasp that resembles this (but the stinger portion of the body is comepletly different)

Thanks in advance for helping name this bugaboo.

Thanks.
B

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