A few days ago I posted a close-up photograph of a newly emerged cicada. Birds prey on cicadas, but they also have another predator to worry about in the insect realm…cicada wasps, or as they are also known, cicada hawks. These scary looking wasps don’t usually sting people, but they are deadly to cicadas. I find their appearance fascinating.
Solitary wasps (such as the eastern cicada killer) are very different in their behavior from the social wasps such as hornets, yellowjackets, and paper wasps. Cicada killer females use their sting to paralyze their prey (cicadas) rather than to defend their nests; unlike most social wasps and bees, they do not attempt to sting unless handled roughly. Adults feed on flower nectar and other plant sap exudates. After digging a nest chamber in the burrow, female cicada killers capture cicadas, paralyzing them with a sting. After paralyzing a cicada, the female wasp holds it upside down beneath her and takes off toward her burrow; this return flight to the burrow is difficult for the wasp because the cicada is often more than twice her weight. After putting one or more cicadas in her nest cell, the female deposits an egg on a cicada and closes the cell with dirt.”
~ Wikipedia
Cicada Wasps are Gentle Giants
MINDING MY P'S WITH Q 
…wow. I have FINALLY discovered the answer to a lifelong puzzle. As a child I witnessed a GIANT hornet coming out of a hole in the ground, which was (at the time) seriously terrifying. We had many cicadas in upstate N. Y. in the 50s (according to their cycle, of course). And I recall recounting my citing of this huge wasp to a garden pest expert at an adult meeting, and me being one of very few children, and he chided me in such a patronizing way I have never forgotten it. Nor, though, have I ever forgotten what I indeed saw. And now today, finally, some 60 years later, feel vindicated! Thank you!!!
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You’re welcome! They are an awesome looking wasp…huge really…but in a way, strangely beautiful. As a child I would have definitely found it terrifying too. It’s the stuff nightmares are made out of…
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Wonderful! I am glad you found your picture. I, too, would have been scared of this one because of his size. He has to be strong to lug a cicada around!
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Strong and beautiful!
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another one of my mysteries solved!
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They are both amazing bugs, the predator and the prey.
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