Organ Pipe Mud Dauber
My Autumn Joy Sedum attracted a visitor that has given me a quest. I want to find the nest of this wasp.
Trypoxylon politum
What makes Organ Pipe Mud Daubers interesting is that they build long tubular mud nests. There are several chambers in each tube in which the female will lay a single egg. Multiple tubes are often constructed along side each other and the whole assembly is supposed to resemble a pipe organ.
Mom knows what’s good for the kids and she stocks each chamber with paralyzed spiders to ensure the kids have plenty of fresh healthy food. They’re going to need it before their long winter nap as a pupa. Come early summer the new wasp will break out of the pupal case and chew it’s way through the mud walls of the nest. So goes the cycle of life and spider terror.
Like other solitary wasps mud daubers rarly sting people. They really have to be harrassed before they sting. So if you do get stung by one I guess you have no one to blame but yourself. Holding them in a closed hand or mouth really isn’t the smartest thing to do.
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September 4th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Nice !
I’d love to see the nest too !
September 5th, 2009 at 12:08 am
It looks kind of scary on the first picture. On the second picture, it looks almost gracious. Even elegant. I like black.
September 5th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Their name alone is pretty interesting, if you ask me!
September 5th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I am so jealous. It owns the whole flower.
September 5th, 2009 at 10:24 am
I’d like a few more mud daubers here, please. We have a plethora of spiders and I’m just not that into spiders, even though I know they’re beneficial, blah blah blah. I got mad at one last week that had a bumblebee in its web, freed the bee (she’d just stumbled in after a drunken binge in the bee balm) broke the web and stomped the spider for good measure. Please don’t report me to the Society for the Prevention of Stomping on Spiders.
September 5th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
The wings are beautiful – so iridescent! Great photos, as usual!
September 5th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I’ve been seeing a lot of these guys around here recently. I have a series of very blurry pictures of one.