The Black and Yellow Mud Dauber<\/p>\n
The black and yellow mud dauber is a type of wasp. Dauber is used to describe a crude or inartistic painter, and these wasps use mud as a building material for their nests, hence the name mud dauber. Their scientific is name Sceliphron caementarium<\/em> and in Latin caementarium<\/em> means mason or builder of walls.<\/p>\n Physical Characteristics<\/p>\n The wasps are black and yellow as their name suggests. Most of the body is black with some yellow markings on the legs, head, thorax, and sometimes abdomen. \u00a0The wasp\u2019s body differs from what most people think of when they hear wasp, it\u2019s waist between the thorax and abdomen is very narrow, and is slightly longer than the abdomen itself. The wasp is approximately an inch in length.<\/p>\n Mating\/Reproduction<\/p>\n The reproduction rate of these wasps is low, as the females will only lay 15 eggs in their lifetime. After mating the female will store the male\u2019s sperm in in her seminal receptacle, allowing fertilization to take place at a later time. The female then finds a suitable location for her nest, somewhere sheltered from the elements like rock ledges, or trees, or underneath overhangs of manmade structures. She takes mud from ponds and slowly constructs cells to store her eggs. \u00a0She hunts spiders by paralyzing them with her sting and places them within the cells with her eggs before closing the nest with more mud. The larvae must eat meat to grow and when the hatch they consume the spider that was trapped inside the nest. The larvae then spin cocoons and spend the winter inside before emerging in the spring.<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.fnanaturesearch.org\/index.php?option=com_naturesearch&task=view&id=296<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/6610<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/bioweb.uwlax.edu\/bio210\/s2012\/bain_mega\/Reproduction.htm<\/a><\/p>\n