''Zeta argillaceum'' is one of the most common species of

potter wasp Potter wasps (or mason wasps), the Eumeninae, are a cosmopolitan wasp group presently treated as a subfamily of Vespidae, but sometimes recognized in the past as a separate family, Eumenidae. Recognition Most eumenine species are black or brown, ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It is found throughout the continent and as far north as

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and the southern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

(where it is thought to have been accidentally introduced). This wasp adapts easily to habitat change and the nests are a common sight, often in small groups, attached to the walls of buildings in

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...

s. The nest cell is roughly spherical, up to 18 mm in diameter, with a single small entrance hole. A single

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

is laid in each cell: the adult wasp stocks the cell with paralyzed living food (usually geometrid moth

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e) for the emerging wasp larva to feed on. The nest is only used once by ''Z. argillaceum'' but is often reused by other potter wasps such as '' Pachodynerus spp''. ''Z. argillaceum'' is often affected by

parasitoid In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...

s such as the

eulophid The Eulophidae are a large family of hymenopteran insects, with over 4,300 described species in some 300 genera. The family includes the genus ''Elasmus'', which used to be treated as a separate family, "Elasmidae", and is now treated as a subf ...

Melittobia australica ''Melittobia australica'' is a species of chalcid wasp from the family Eulophidae which is a gregarious ecto-parasitoid of acuealate Hymenoptera. Description ''Melittobia australica'' is a small wasp between 1.1 and 1.4 mm in length but ha ...

''.

References

Nesting biology of ''Zeta argillaceum''
Potter wasps Insects described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{potter-wasp-stub