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Help needed

I unfortunately do not have a photograph. I will make an effort to aquire one. Whenever my daughter and I go out onto our front porch durring the hottest part of the day; we are harassed by a large flying insect.
It is at least the size of my thumb, it is almost all black with perhaps some light cream or off white on it's wings. When I first saw it I took it for a large black wasp and was quite terrified. needless to say we don't go outside for those few hours much lately.
I spoke to my husband about it, and he said he had seen it. He said they call it a King Ant, despite the fact that it is neither ant nor wasp/bee of any variety. He says it is quite harmless and can not bite or sting.
It looks to me upon closer inspection to be a cross between a wasp and a butterfly, with those long bent leggs that hang down as he soars and small wings like a butterfly or moth. he is clumsy often bumping into things when he flies but also very nervy and will dive at your head.
Does anyone here have the vaguest idea what it is? And is he as harmless as my husband says? What can I do to discourage him from the vascinity of my porch?
Any help would be much appreciated!!

Lots of possibilities.
Does sound like a wasp, though, perhaps a male Cicada killer, Sphecius speciosus, as we have had other reports of this kind of behavior. Could also be a male carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, and that is actually the more likely suspect. Male bees and wasps are indeed harmless, as they are physically incapable of stinging. They tend to BEHAVE aggressively, though, because many kinds defend territories around the nesting sites of the females. You may have a female carpenter bee nesting in a beam near where the male is hovering. Anyway, I encourage you to visit our guide pages for these two species and see if one of them is not what you are observing.

 
help needed
Thank you for this information. The idea that it is an agressive male wasp which is unable to sting (of some variety) would make sense of my observations and my husbands thoughts; handed down by his father. Although I must say that the idea that we have wasps nesting somewhere near the underside of our porch is distressing. Especially since I have a small daughter whose allergy status is unknown.
I have gone through the wasp photos here, and found only a couple who come close, but no actual matches. I will try to capture him on film for you. Also the carpenter bee photos all have bits of yellow on them, this fellow is all black as far as I can see, except for a bit of pale cream on his wings.

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