cicada killer

Any of several large solitary wasps of the genus Sphecius that prey on cicadas.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun

cicada killer - large black or rust-colored wasp that preys on cicadas

Sphecius speciosis

digger wasp - solitary wasp that digs nests in the soil and stocks them with paralyzed insects for the larvae

genus Sphecius, Sphecius - large solitary wasps: cicada killer

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References in periodicals archive

huge mounds of dirt in our yard filled with huge--and I mean huge--jurassic-size cicada killer wasps.

Male cicada killer wasps are aggressive, but they don't have stingers.

Adequate lime, fertilizer and frequent watering promote a thick growth of turf and can usually eliminate a cicada killer wasp infestation in one or two seasons.

Banish bugs & crack down on critters

Toss in Poodle's paranoia about Giant Cicada Killer Wasps and their impending take over of Augusta's famous twelfth hole--despite the attempts of entomology professor Jeevpil Biswapati and his flamethrower--and you end up with a "toonamint" even the Marx brothers would roll their eyes at.

Toonamint of Champions: How LaJuanita Mumps Got to Join August National Golf Club Real Easy

We investigated the possibility that nepotism toward non-descendant kin occurs in a solitary hymenopteran, the cicada killer wasp (Sphecius speciosus).

Regardless of the ultimate selective basis of neighbor tolerance in cicada killer wasps, finding that neighbors are kin would suggest that the capacity for nepotism can evolve in a solitary species and thus that such an ability may have been a key pre-adaptation for the evolution of cooperative nesting among kin.

In each of the 10 Monte Carlo trials, the mean probability that any given band in a nesting cicada killer was also present in a neighbor was significantly greater than the probability that the band was present in a non-neighbor (Table 1).

Nepotism in a solitary wasp as revealed by DNA fingerprinting

As in a New Jersey cicada killer population (Grant 2006), the upper limit for prey load appears to be 2.5, which is likely the physical limit of the wasps' ability to carry prey in flight (Coelho 1997).

This study has provided evidence of size-specific provisioning by female cicada killer wasps at 2 locations in north Florida; female wasps appear to provision nests with the largest available cicadas that they can carry in flight.

Size-specific provisioning by cicada killers, Sphecius speciosus, (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) in north Florida

Consequently, we are confident that wing length is a good indicator of cicada killer size.

At many of the locations visited in this study we observed miltogrammine flies, known to be parasites of cicada killer nests, near openings of S.

Body size relationship between Sphecius speciosus (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) and their prey: prey size determines wasp size

Carlton, who matter-offactly said they were cicada killers. Known for keeping a straight face while setting you up for a joke.

FAREWELL, CDR. JIM CARLTON