Ammophila sabulosa
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''Ammophila sabulosa'', the red-banded sand wasp, is a species of the subfamily
Ammophilinae Ammophilinae is a subfamily of thread-waisted wasps in the family Sphecidae. There are about 6 genera and more than 320 described species in Ammophilinae. Genera These six genera belong to the subfamily Ammophilinae: * '' Ammophila'' W. Kirby, ...
of the solitary hunting
wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...
family
Sphecidae The Sphecidae are a cosmopolitan family of wasps of the suborder Apocrita that includes sand wasps, mud daubers, and other thread-waisted wasps. The name Sphecidae was formerly given to a much larger grouping of wasps. This was found to be p ...
, also called digger wasps. Found across Eurasia, the
parasitoid wasp Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causin ...
is notable for the
mass provisioning Mass provisioning is a form of parental investment in which an adult insect, most commonly a hymenopteran such as a bee or wasp, stocks all the food for each of her offspring in a small chamber (a "cell") before she lays the egg. This behavior i ...
behaviour of the females, hunting caterpillars mainly on sunny days, paralysing them with a sting, and burying them in a burrow with a single egg. The species is also remarkable for the extent to which females parasitise their own species, either stealing prey from nests of other females to provision their own nests, or in
brood parasitism Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own ...
, removing the other female's egg and laying one of her own instead.


Taxonomy

The species was first described by the Swedish taxonomist
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
as ''Sphex sabulosa'' in 1758. The genus '' Ammophila'' was created by the English
parson-naturalist A parson-naturalist was a cleric (a "parson", strictly defined as a country priest who held the living of a parish, but the term is generally extended to other clergy), who often saw the study of natural science as an extension of his religious wor ...
William Kirby in 1798. It was formerly thought that the following were subspecies: * '' Ammophila vagabunda'' F. Smith, 1856, (includes ''Ammophila sabulosa solowiyofkae'' Matsumura, 1911, a junior synonym) * '' Ammophila touareg'' Ed. André, 1886


Distribution

''Ammophila sabulosa'' is widely distributed across Eurasia with records from the southern half of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy. Hungary, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, further south in Turkey and Iran, then ranging eastwards as far as the Russian Far East, with a very few records in India and Japan.


Description

''Ammophila sabulosa'' is a large ( long) and striking solitary hunting wasp with a very long narrow "
waist The waist is the part of the abdomen between the rib cage and hips. On people with slim bodies, the waist is the narrowest part of the torso. ''Waistline'' refers to the horizontal line where the waist is narrowest, or to the general appearan ...
" of two segments. The body is black except for the front half of the "
tail The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammals, r ...
", which is orange. The species can be told from '' A. pubescens'' (which is smaller, long) as the waist widens out very gradually into the "tail" of the abdomen. The pattern of the forewings also differs: the third submarginal cell makes broad contact with the cell to its front. Another difference is that the rear end of the abdomen has a faint metallic blue sheen.


Behaviour

The adults fly in summer on heathland and sandy places where the soil is soft enough for the female to dig burrows. The females are
parasitoids In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasi ...
, spending much of their time hunting for caterpillars. Sphecid wasps may begin by finding caterpillar faeces; parasitoid wasps are attracted by multiple substances, some volatile and some not, and the non-volatile cairohormones are found in caterpillar secretions and faeces. The captured caterpillars are always hairless, and are mostly Noctuids (owlet moths) or Geometrids (geometer moths, inchworms). The wasp grabs the upper (dorsal) side of the caterpillar, and angles her long abdomen around under the caterpillar to sting it on its lower (ventral) side, paralyzing it. The caterpillar remains alive, so that the wasp larvae will have fresh food to eat. The female digs burrows in sandy ground, provisions each burrow with a food supply of paralyzed caterpillars, and lays one egg, always on the first caterpillar to go into the burrow. The prey is stung several times, mainly on the 2nd and 3rd abdominal segments: this distribution may relate to the positions of nerve
ganglia A ganglion is a group of neuron cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system. In the somatic nervous system this includes dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal ganglia among a few others. In the autonomic nervous system there are both sympatheti ...
that co-ordinate locomotion in the caterpillar. Eggs are laid mainly on the 3rd and 4th abdominal segments. A female may make up to ten nests, one at a time (unlike ''A. pubescens'' where the female prepares multiple nests at once); most of the nests are provided with one large caterpillar, and the rest with two to five smaller caterpillars. Either way, the total prey volume is roughly 350 mm3. Each nest is a short burrow some long, with an ovoidal brood-cell about long at the end. The burrow is sealed with stones, twigs or pieces of earth and then covered with sand. The female
camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...
s the nest with debris such as pine needles and pebbles unless the surface in the area is bare sand. Females are normally active only in direct sunlight. Nests are nearly always mass provisioned, which means fully stocked with enough food to take the wasp larva through to pupation, and then permanently closed.


Brood parasitism

Females often parasitise their own species, either stealing prey (kleptoparasitism) from nests of other females to provision their own nests, or in
brood parasitism Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own ...
, removing the other female's egg and laying one of her own instead. Brood parasitism "appears to be a cheap and easy route to producing offspring", as it takes only about 30 minutes to switch eggs in an existing nest, but about 10 hours to build and provision a new nest; however, more than 80% of brood-parasitised nests were themselves parasitised by another female.


Parasites

''Ammophila sabulosa'' is parasitised by some other wasps including the
Ichneumonid The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family (biology), family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 2 ...
''Buathra tarsoleuca'' and the
Sphecid The Sphecidae are a cosmopolitan family of wasps of the suborder Apocrita that includes sand wasps, mud daubers, and other thread-waisted wasps. The name Sphecidae was formerly given to a much larger grouping of wasps. This was found to be ...
'' Podalonia affinis''. A
Strepsiptera The Strepsiptera are an order of insects with eleven extant families that include about 600 described species. They are endoparasites in other insects, such as bees, wasps, leafhoppers, silverfish, and cockroaches. Females of most species never ...
n (twisted-wing) parasite ''Paraxenos sphecidarum'' has been recorded in Belarus.


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q655138 Insects used as insect pest control agents Biological pest control wasps Sphecidae Wasps described in 1758 Articles containing video clips Brood parasites Hymenoptera of Europe Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus