Black and yellow mud dauber
The black and yellow mud dauber is a slim wasp with a super thin waist and yellow legs. It is a little builder: it makes its nest out of balls of mud. You might find its mud nests under roofs, on porches or in barns.
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Fun facts
It collects little balls of mud at the edges of puddles and carries them home to build.
One nest can have up to 25 rooms and grow as big as a grown-up's fist.
The mother puts 6 to 15 sleeping spiders in each room, lays one egg and closes the door with mud.
After finishing her nest, the mother flies away and never comes back. The babies grow up alone.
Its waist is so thin that it is about half as long as its whole back end.
Most asked questions about Black and yellow mud dauber
?What is the mud nest for?
Each mud room holds spiders and one egg. The baby wasp eats the spiders and later breaks out of the mud.
?How big is a mud dauber?
About 2.4 to 2.8 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Sceliphron caementarium
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Sphecidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Sphecidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Yellow-legged mud-dauber wasp, Black-waisted mud-dauber wasp
Where the facts come from
- Sceliphron caementarium (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 Didier Descouens. 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 hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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