Sabre wasp
The sabre wasp is a thin black wasp with white spots and reddish legs. The female has a super long, hair-thin tail that can be longer than her body. She uses it to drill deep into wood.
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Fun facts
It is one of the biggest ichneumon wasps in Europe.
The female can find larvae hidden up to 4 cm deep inside a tree trunk, drill down to them and lay an egg on them.
Its main targets are the larvae of wood wasps and longhorn beetles.
The larvae spend the winter inside the wood and come out as grown-up wasps the next summer.
You can most often see it in July and August along paths and clearings in pine forests.
Most asked questions about Sabre wasp
?How big is the sabre wasp?
Females are about 2 to 4 cm long, plus a tail that can be just as long. Males are smaller.
?What does the sabre wasp eat?
The grown-ups drink sugary honeydew. Their larvae eat other insect larvae inside wood.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Rhyssa persuasoria
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Ichneumonidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Ichneumonidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Giant ichneumon
Where the facts come from
- Rhyssa persuasoria (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by John Tomsett. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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