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Digger Wasps
  
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COMMON NAME: Digger Wasps
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Various
CLASSlORDERIFAMILY: Insecta/HymenopteralScoliidae
METAMORPHOSIS: Complete
INTRODUCTION: These wasps get their common name from the fact that the female digs into the ground to locate the scarab beetle larval host. They are a nuisance pest in urban lawns. There are 20 species in the United States and Canada.
RECOGNITION: Adults large, about 3/4-2" (20-50 mm) long; robust and hairy. Color black with bands or areas of red, yellow, and/or white. Thoracic sternum broad with transverse suture (impressed line), hind coxae widely separated. Wing area beyond closed cells with many fine parallel wrinkles. Abdomen of male sharply constricted at base, abdomen of female evenly tapered.
REPRESENTATIVE SPECIES:
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Scolia dubia Say. Length about 5/8" (16 mm); color blue black with 2 short yellow stripes on 3rd abdominal segment which do not meet at center, black areas of abdomen with reddish hairs, wings blackish purple; common in East Coast states, west to California.
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Campsomeds tolteca (Saussure). Length about 5/8-1 1/8" (15-28 mm); head black, thorax black with whitish hairs anteriorly, abdomen pale red with black markings, wings clear; found in California, Arizona, and Texas in U.S.
BIOLOGY: These are solitary wasps, they are not social and do not live in colonies. Digger wasps fly above lawns which are infested with scarab beetle (Scarabaeidae) larvae (white grubs), especially the genus Phyllophaga. The females do not dig their own burrows but instead sting the scarab larva to paralyze it, attach their eggs, and then build a crude cell around the larva. The wasp larvae feed on the paralyzed scarab larva.
These wasps rarely sting people. As a matter-of-fact, one can safely walk through them as they fly over a lawn.
HABITS: These wasps appear in the early morning and fly low over lawns infested with scarab beetle larvae all day. They leave with the approach of evening.
The Scolia dubia wasps parasitize the larvae of the green June beetle, Cotinis nitida (Linnaeus). Scolud wasps are often found on flowers.
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