Tyde's sand wasp
Tyde's sand wasp is a slim black wasp with a red front half on its tummy and fine silver hairs. It loves sunshine and lives on sandy places such as coastal dunes. As soon as clouds cover the sun, it disappears.
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Fun facts
To find caterpillars, the female flies and walks over the ground and digs lots of big craters in the sand.
It carries a caterpillar home by standing over it and holding it tightly in its jaws.
Its nest is a hole about 5 centimetres deep, and the mother digs it in about 9 minutes.
Around the real nest she also digs 4 to 6 fake holes.
It cleans its legs and feelers with little combs on its front and back legs.
Most asked questions about Tyde's sand wasp
?What does Tyde's sand wasp eat?
Its larvae eat caterpillars that the mother catches and puts in the nest.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Podalonia tydei
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Sphecidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Sphecidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania, Europe, Asia, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Podalonia tydei (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 Geoffrey Cox. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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