Square-headed Sand Wasp, AKA Weevil Wasp - Cerceris
I just had too many pictures on my main wasp page, so this is kind of an overflow page. It's dedicated exclusively to the wasps I've photographed in my yard near The Woodlands TX (Houston area).
10/29/22
Female Sand Wasp Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus from 8/20/2016, a new one for me. There's a surprising variety of bees and wasps in the back yard. Here's the bugguide.net link.
November 2016 from the backyard. This is a big colorful guy! Nikon D750, 200mm lens, f8, ISO 1600, 1/1000s with fill flash. Updated with latest bugguide ID.
The shot above is from July 2016 in the backyard. The wasp is making pulp out of chewed-up plant leaves, I believe. This is a female Polistes (Paper Wasp, carolina or rubiginosus).
Nikon D750 Camera, 200mm f4 micro lens, 1/640s, f8, ISO 640. This is from the backyard (Houston TX area). Thanks Dr. Buck for identifying these as female Polistes metricus.
Polistes metricus, female, per Dr. Buck.
I caught some pictures of this guy busily chewing on our fence. Gil postulated: The wasp that is eating your wood post plans to chew the wood and make it into its hanging nest. It is a Paper Wasp, family Vespidae, subfamily Polistinae. I’ll bet you 50 cents that it is the Red, or Carolina, Paper Wasp, Polistes carolina, a species native to the eastern U.S.
Image Detail: Nikon D750 camera, 200mm f4 ED macro, f8, 1/2000s, ISO 640, matrix metered, hand-held.
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Back yard August 2016. Bugguide link here. Same general flavor as the guy below (i.e., they both belong to the Potter and Mason wasp family). It was quite small for a wasp, maybe as long as the width of my fingertip.
Bugguide link here for above. Back yard August 2016. This is small wasp also; didn't get a great shot but good enough to identify the species.
Same wasp as above & same equipment; this time f6.3 and 1/2500s. I used Photoshop CS6's HDR toning to jazz up these two paper wasp pics to a nice effect I think.
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by Dick Locke. All Rights Reserved.
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