Exeirus

The Australian cicada killer wasp, Exeirus lateritius, the sole member of the genus Exeirus, is a large, solitary, ground-dwelling, predatory wasp. It is related to the more common genus of cicada killers, Sphecius. In Australia, E. lateritius hunts over 200 species of cicada.

Australian cicada killer wasp
Exeirus lateritius (Cicada-killer wasp), Fraser Coast, Queensland, Australia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Crabronidae
Genus: Exeirus
Species:
E. lateritius
Binomial name
Exeirus lateritius
(Shuckard, 1838)

Habitat

The wasps occur in warm, dry areas where there are enough trees to support cicadas, such as the Murray-Darling basin, the south-east coast of the Australian mainland including Sydney, and Tasmania.

Predation method

Exeirus lateritius stings and paralyses cicadas high in the trees, making them drop to the ground, from where the wasp moves them to its burrow, pushing with its hind legs, sometimes over a distance of a hundred meters. The paralysed cicada is placed on one of many shelves in a "catacomb", to form the food-stock for the wasp grub which grows out of the egg deposited there.,[1] sometimes as deep as 60 cm underground[2]

References
  1. Tillyard, P (1926), The Insects of Australia and New Zealand, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, pp. 298–99
  2. Giant Cicada Killer Wasp Buries Cicada on YouTube


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