Pollinator, Predator, Parent, Prey
By Dan Zarlenga, Missouri Department of Conservation
A cicada killer wasp can play quite a variety of roles. Parent, architect, hunter, killer, provider,
pollinator, and ultimately, perhaps even victim.
Eastern cicada killer wasps are recognized by their large size, up to 1.5 inches long, along with their
red-tinted wings and sharp black and yellow markings. There’s no mistaking these insects for
anything other than wasps. They live throughout Missouri, but as scary as their size makes them
look, cicada killer wasps pose no threat to humans. Unlike social wasps such as yellow jackets
that fiercely defend their nests and can attack humans, cicada killers are a solitary species with no
such aggressive instincts.
The males do fly and hover around the nests of favorite females to protect their territories. They
may crash their bodies into other interloping insects. Humans, however, they avoid.
The female is the one who earns this species its name. The story starts with the mother cicada
killer wasp demonstrating her amazing architectural skills. She locates well drained, fine textured
soil, where she begins digging a burrow. From here, she excavates a tunnel 12-18 inches long and 6-
10 inches below the surface. Off this main tunnel, the mother constructs four or five cells that will
become her nursery. Depending on how many secondary tunnels and cells she makes, the female
cicada killer can raise up to 16 larvae.
Now comes the cicada killing part! As the dog day cicadas emerge in July and August, the female
cicada killer begins cruising the brush for victims. When she finds a plump, hapless cicada that she
judges to be the ideal “baby food”, she attacks! With a swift move, the cicada killer stings and
paralyzes her victim into submission. The mighty mom then single-handedly drags the cicada—
massive from her perspective—away all by herself.
Into the burrow they go, and she places her quarry into one of the cells she’s made. Next, the wasp
lays an egg right on the living but paralyzed cicada, and she seals the chamber off.
In a couple of days, that egg hatches and the hungry larva emerges, only to dig into the helpless
cicada’s body and consume the victim alive from the inside out. This grisly form of nourishment
sustains the larva in its protective cell through winter. It will emerge the following July as an adult.
As adults, cicada killer wasps feed on flower nectar, and in the process of going from plant to plant,
they become important pollinators. And in victimizing annual cicadas to feed their young, the
females help keep the cicada populations in check. Their tunneling even aerates the soil.
But true to nature’s balance, all is not flowers and nectar for cicada killer wasps. They are preyed
on by another wasp called the velvet ant. Female velvet ant wasps sneak into cicada killer wasp
tunnels and lay eggs in a nest cell. They eventually hatch and munch down on the developing
cicada killers inside.
From parent to pollinator, predator to prey. The cicada killer wasp plays all these parts and
embodies the complexity of nature’s web—each role vital, each part connected.
A female cicada killer wasp (left) drags her cicada victim away to become baby food.
Photo courtesy Huggy2122, Wikimedia Commons