Cicada Killer

Quite an impressive wasp, due to its size, a Cicada Killer (Sphecius speciosus). Its size is between 1.125 to 2 inches long. Females are larger than males. Though what seems like an intimidating size, they are not to be feared. The males don’t have stingers and females are intent on using their stingers for paralyzing cicadas which they often catch in flight. Those females, with their stingers, will only sting you if very provoked.

These wasps as larvae or grubs, overwinter in a cocoon in the soil. They emerge in the middle or late summer. During their exceeding short life as adults they feed on flower nectar.

Males’ purpose in life is to mate, living for about 2 weeks.

After mating, the female wasps look for the perfect spot to dig their burrows. They hunt up Cicadas, paralyze them, bury them, each with an egg in the Cicada which will nourish the grub until it emerges as an adult the following summer. All this in the course of about 4 weeks.

The Cicada Killer is a beneficial insect, helping to control harmful Cicada populations and help in pollination.

Published by

Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.

3 thoughts on “Cicada Killer”

  1. I was happy to see my first Cicada Killer of the year today. It somehow got inside and trapped in a window, and I carefully let it back outside.It felt like a coincidence after seeing this post yesterday! I enjoyed reading about the life cycle. What a cool insect!

  2. Hi Brigitte!
    How cool that you got to see one of this amazing critters just after I had written about them. It was an adventure for me, as is often the case. I take pictures and THEN find out about what I’ve captured in pixels. No telling what it might be!
    Thanks bunches for reading my posts!
    Bren

    1. I saw my cicada killer the day before I saw this story. Yes, another amazing coincidence.

      I do have a question though. Cicadas, through evolution, attempt to avoid this kind of parasitism by having a multi-year life cycle lasting a prime number of years. Why does fail with this kind of wasp?

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