• Question from:Steve

Dear sirs,
I had observed this insect burrowing in our garden and I'm curious as to what it is.
In flight it has dangling legs like a wasp, but no visible stinger.
The organism has bright orange legs with a single orange ring on it's abdomen. Black and yellow are the colors near the head. In certain light the black color appears to be metalic blue.
Overall length appears to be 2-3 inches and it's very noisy while flying.
This insect was observed carrying a large baby grasshopper in flight which it promply dragged into it's burrow.
The burrow was about a 1 inch perfect circle with the removed dirt carried about 6 inches away from the hole.
The photo was taken in the end of June 2012, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

Thank you for your consideration,
Steve

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  • Brisbane, Queensland,, Australia
  • Posts: 181

It's a wasp, and it was carrying the grasshopper as food for it's grub.  Digger wasps excavate a small chamber underground, provision it with grasshoppers, caterpillars, spiders, etc. which it has caught and paralysed with a sting, and lay an egg in it.  When the wasp grub hatches it consumes it's larder of live insects before emerging as a fully formed adult.  So these wasps, which are harmless to humans, do a great job of pest control in a garden.