Potter spider wasp
The potter spider wasp is a small black wasp that hunts spiders. The mother builds a nest of little barrel-shaped rooms out of mud, like a tiny potter. In each room she puts one spider as food for her baby.
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Fun facts
A nest can have ten or more mud rooms stuck together in a block.
The mother makes the mud from little balls of wet soil and even fetches extra water to help with building.
She builds her nests in ready-made holes, like under stones, in old walls, in tree stumps or in empty beetle tunnels.
Most asked questions about Potter spider wasp
?Why is it called a potter wasp?
Because the mother makes little barrel-shaped rooms out of mud for her babies.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Auplopus carbonarius
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Pompilidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Pompilidae
- Lives on
- Europe, North America
- Also known as
- Yellow-faced spider wasp
Where the facts come from
- Auplopus carbonarius (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 Fritz Geller-Grimm. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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