Ornate-tailed digger wasp
Cerceris rybyensis
The ornate-tailed digger wasp is a small black and yellow wasp that lives alone. The mother digs a tunnel in the ground and fills it with food for her babies. Her favourite food to catch is small bees.
Lives in
Europe and across Asia to Japan, on sandy and chalky ground
Length
0.6 to 1.2 cm (0.24 to 0.47 in)
What does it eat?
The mother catches small bees and stores them in her nest as food for her babies.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 2 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 20 seconds⚡moves 440 times its own body length every second
How big is Ornate-tailed digger wasp compared to YOU?
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How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Ornate-tailed digger wasp about 19 km/h (12 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
She catches bees as they fly home heavy with pollen, because then they are slower.
2
Her tunnel is up to 15 centimetres long, with little side rooms holding 5 to 8 bees each.
3
Before leaving to hunt, she flies around her burrow to remember where it is.
you asked
Most asked questions about Ornate-tailed digger wasp
?What does the digger wasp eat?
The mother hunts small bees to feed her babies in the nest.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cerceris rybyensis
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1771
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Philanthidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Philanthidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Cerceris rybyensis (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 linsepatron. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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