Cricket Hunter Wasp
Chlorion aerarium
This spectacular, metalic blue-green wasp was busy hunting for crickets on an eroded embankment near Cave Creek, Maricopa County, Arizona. 30 Sept. 2008.
Sphecidae -- Sphecid Wasp Family
By day crickets of the Sonoran Desert mostly hide deep in their burrows to escape the heat and dry conditions. But they are not particularily safe. Cricket Hunter wasps can find them using sensitive chemo-receptors (smell) and enter the burrows after them. Once found, the wasp paralyzes the cricket with a sting. With one to several crickets the wasp provisions its own burrow. Later the wasp's egg will hatch into a grub that consumes the crickets. The wasp will excavate a new burrow and make cricket provisions for each of its young.