A DIGGING WASP AT WORK

It happened in my garden, on the ground between two rows of tomato plants, a couple of days ago. A wasp was digging a hole and I was recording and photographing the process. It took a couple of hours for the insect to accept my presence, but once it did, I was able to come very close and use the macro lens.

(Enlargeable)

The wasp in question is Sphex funerarius, a species from the Sphecidae family. The larvae feed on living grasshoppers that the females like the one shown in today's post paralyze and carry to the underground nest. The female stores several grasshoppers in a nest. I saw the wasp dig two nests in my garden but unfortunately, I wasn't there when she brought the paralyzed grasshoppers. Maybe I'll get that moment next year for one of the future posts.
And now, it's time to take a look at the video, the central, probably most attractive part of this thing I prepared for today. Have a good viewing.

Source

When it comes to the structure of the wasp's underground nest, there is a corridor, about fifteen centimeters long, with more brood chambers. In each of those chambers, one prey is stored with an egg. The eggs hatch after three or four days and the larvae feed on paralyzed grasshoppers ( locusts and bushcrickets, sometimes adults but more often nymphs) for another eighteen days. The adult males and females feed on nectar.

(Enlargeable)

AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE VIDEO ARE MY WORK

The following link will take you to the site with more information about the protagonist of this post. I found some stuff about it there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphex_funerarius

The music in the video is some lovely free-to-use stuff I found on Pixabay.
Music by Artem Hramushkin from Pixabay

Music by Sergei Chetvertnykh from Pixabay

Music by Lof Cosmos from Pixabay