Good morning my darlings, I wish you a beautiful day with lots of sunshine 🙋🏼♀️🌞😘🌞
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Generally, I have a grudging detente with anything wasp-shaped. I know we need them, they serve an important role in various ecosystems, and so forth, but I've been stung enough times that a yellow-and-black-striped buzz will set my heart racing. Ugh.
So imagine how I felt when I saw something that looked like a massive mutant wasp next to me on a walking path. My brain went AAA GIANT HORNET even though we don't have those in the Midwest. It was huge. I wasn't sure if I should even walk past it.
However...I've been absorbing a lot of bug positivity from @onenicebugperday lately. So I stood there for a minute and watched the mega-wasp.
It didn't act aggressive. It crawled along the curling tendrils of one flower head, then buzzed over to check out another one. I slowly took out my phone and snapped a picture. (From a reasonable distance. Photo cropped for detail...)
Looked it up online when I got home, and it appears to be Sphecius speciosus, the Eastern cicada killer, which is actually super chill when it comes to humans.
Various entomology sites inform me that if it's a guy wasp, he has a pointy butt, but no stinger. He might fly around someone threateningly, but he's basically saying "Hey, get outta my turf." If you leave, he won't follow. If it's a lady wasp, she has a stinger, but she'd rather not waste it on a human unless they do something aggressively stupid like try to catch her. She'd rather save her stings for cicadas to feed to her (eventual) kids. TIL!
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