Cicada-killer

So I've had an infestation of these huge hornets near my house recently. My dad, seeing them, said he thought they were the kinda that killed cicadas, and laid their eggs in them.

Well today, at a garage sale on a close by street, I saw this behavior in action.


AWESOME.

The female had already caught and paralyzed the cicada, and was stinging it over and over, then carrying it off to her nest.

See the bottom of this post for detailed info; short and sweet facts here:
-Females are the only ones that can sting, and rarely sting humans. If they do, it might only feel like a pinprick.
-Males will fight with one another, but can't harm humans.
-The males don't stray more than 60 ft. from where they hatch, but can find their way home from 6 miles away.
-The females catch both male and female cicadas... impressive because the female cicadas don't sing like the males do.
-The females always lay their eggs under one of two specific legs on the cicada, to provide better access for the feeding grub into the juicy parts.

Pictures:










From wikipedia:
After digging a nest chamber in the burrow, female cicada killers capture cicadas, paralyzing them with a sting; the cicadas then serve as food to rear their young. After paralyzing a cicada, the female wasp straddles it 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 the cicada in the nest cell, the female deposits an egg on the cicada and closes the cell with dirt. Male eggs are laid on a single cicada but female eggs are given two or sometimes three cicadas; this is because the female wasp is twice as large as the male and must have more food. New nest cells are dug as necessary off the main burrow tunnel and a single burrow may eventually have 10 to 20 cells. The egg hatches in one or two days, and the cicadas serve as food for the grub. The larvae complete their development in about 2 weeks. Overwintering occurs as a mature larva within an earth-coated cocoon. Pupation occurs in the nest cell in the spring and lasts 25 to 30 days. There is only one generation per year and no adults overwinter.

The males are more often seen in groups, vigorously challenging one another for position on the breeding aggregation from which they emerged, and generally pursuing anything that moves or flies within close proximity. It is not unusual to see two or three male wasps locked together in midair combat, the aggregate adopting an erratic and uncontrolled flight path until one of the wasps breaks away. The male wasp's aggressive behavior is extremely similar to that of another robust insect of the area, the male carpenter bee. In both cases, while the males' vigorous territorial defense can be extremely frightening and intimidating to human passersby, the males pose no danger whatsoever. They will only grapple with other insects, and cannot sting.

While they may be frightfully large^[2], female cicada killer wasps are not aggressive and rarely sting unless they are grasped roughly, stepped upon with bare feet, or caught in clothing, etc. One author who has been stung indicates that for them, the stings are not much more than a "pinprick"^[3]. Males aggressively defend their perching areas on nesting sites against rival males but they have no sting. Although they appear to attack anything which moves near their territories, male cicada killers are actually investigating anything which might be a female cicada killer ready to mate. Such close inspection appears to many people to be an attack, but the wasps rarely even land on people. If handled roughly females will sting, and males will jab with a sharp spine on the tip of their abdomen. Both sexes appear to be well equipped to bite, as they have large jaws; however, they are unable to grasp human skin and cannot bite. They are non-aggressive towards humans and fly away when swatted at, instead of attacking. Cicada killers exert a natural control on cicada populations and thus may directly benefit the deciduous trees upon which cicadas feed.

From http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/bigwasp.html:
Using tagged wasps, I have learned that males rarely move more than 20 meters from their home ranges and that they will return there when captured and released up to two kilometers away. Thus, it is clear that, although they patrol for potential mates in only one area, they know the surrounding area very well, probably from feeding forays.

Female cicada-killers always lay their 4-5 mm long eggs under the left or right second leg of the cicada, presumably because it puts the emerging wasp larva in the best position to begin eating the cicada. As noted by Fabre, insects paralyzed by hunting wasps continue to live and they stay "fresh" (that is, mold-free) much longer than if they are dead.

Picture Credits:
Wikipedia, http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/bigwasp.html