Great Golden Digger Wasp
Sphex ichneumoneus
Sphecidae
A large, striking orange-and-black solitary wasp that looks alarming and is completely harmless to humans. Female visits flowers heavily for nectar, hunts grasshoppers and crickets for her larvae, and aerates soil with her burrowing. One of the most beneficial insects a garden can host.
How to spot one.
1–1.25 inches long — big
Golden-orange thorax with fine golden hairs
Orange front half of abdomen, black rear half
Smoky-orange wings
Long legs
How it lives.
Solitary ground-nester. Female digs vertical burrows in bare soil, then hunts katydids, crickets, and grasshoppers, stings them into paralysis, and drags them into her burrow to feed a single larva. Non-defensive; nearly impossible to provoke into stinging a human.
The spec sheet.
- Type
- Wasp
- Active
- June – September
- Native to NJ
- Yes
- Conservation status
- stable
- Family
- Sphecidae
What it needs.
Plants this species visits, feeds on, or depends on. Names in hydrangea link to the plant’s Field Guide entry.
Nectar source
Nectar source
Common milkweed
Nectar source
Nectar source
Xerces Society · Deschutes Land Trust · Florida Wildflower Foundation
Others in this group.
- SpNative · NJ
Great Black Wasp
Sphex pensylvanicus
Entirely, dramatically black — body, legs, wings — with an iridescent blue sheen if the light catches it right. Large (up to 1.4 inches), solitary, an…
- SdNative · NJ
Blue-winged Scoliid Wasp
Scolia dubia
A large striking wasp with black wings that flash iridescent blue in sunlight. It exists to eat Japanese beetle grubs — female wasps burrow into the g…