Great golden digger wasp
The great golden digger wasp is a big wasp with shiny golden hairs on its head and chest, and orange-red legs. The mother digs a burrow in the ground for her babies. Then she fills it with crickets and grasshoppers for them to eat.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Before she drags a cricket into her burrow, she always leaves it at the door and goes in to check that the way is clear.
If someone moves the cricket a little while she is inside, she puts it back and checks the burrow all over again, sometimes many times.
She pulls the cricket down by its feelers.
Her burrow is a tunnel going down with little side rooms, one for each baby.
Females often dig their burrows close together and sometimes even share one.
Most asked questions about Great golden digger wasp
?What does the great golden digger wasp eat?
The mother catches crickets and grasshoppers as food for her babies.
?Where does the great golden digger wasp live?
In North and South America, from Canada down to South America.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Sphex ichneumoneus
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Sphecidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Sphecidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
- Also known as
- Great golden sand digger
Where the facts come from
- Sphex ichneumoneus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Rhododendrites. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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